I have this light in my kitchen that I never switch on myself. Someone does it for me every now and then. I know this sounds weird, but I don’t have access to the switch and it’s funny because I don’t know who does. At different times, I hear the sound of someone hitting a switch – maybe it’s my next door neighbor, maybe not. But I somehow hear it across the wall, and the light in my kitchen turns on. It happens for a few minutes and so it doesn’t bother me, yet it gets me thinking every time.

About the whole idea of impact; doing something and not knowing anything about its effect on others. Because there’s a possibility you might not even realize you’re making one. You can be normally going about your day, and a random act of yours could be touching someone’s life in a way that hardly crosses your mind. It’s often scary when neither of you clearly realizes that. Because it could be more than just a light switch. It could be a word you let out that you don’t realize how much it triggers someone you had no idea was around. It could be a look you unconsciously give, that forever gets stored in their memory and impacts their relationship with everyone else. Yet it could also be a smile you don’t realize you’ve passed onto another face on a tough day they’d been dreading every minute of. It could be the way you hold their hands, the way you give that extra pat on the shoulder they were in need of, or the way you decide to be unapologetically yourself; helping them feel okay about who they are in response, without any of you being able to pinpoint where it’s coming from.

It could be anything, and yet our minds often make it hard to believe we’re that influential, even if it’s on a small scale. But we all really are, in one way or the other. We just sometimes find it easier to believe in our insignificance over admitting that our mere existence can touch lives or make a difference we can be proud of. I guess we haven’t yet recognized what it means to be a human being, and how much power lies in that.

Next time you hit a switch that doesn’t light up the room you’re in, think of the possibility that it might be connecting you with someone you know nothing about. 🙂