Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world.
“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” -David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
Such is the world. Though it hasn’t gotten bigger per se, I think we have become more aware of its immensity. That is not to say that we as individuals are powerless or negligible—people disprove that notion everyday. But I’m looking at the San Francisco skyline right now, thinking about how there are tens of thousands of people right in front of me, hidden behind curtained windows, walking on streets far below, and how invisible everyone seems to be. Seeing the endless stream of cars pass by, it’s easy to remove that silver Camry, or that red I-don’t-know-what-it-is car. To take out those faceless individuals and move on with life, and to walk on without any further consideration. Take a drop out of the ocean, and the ocean is just as grand and expansive.
So such is my life. To most of the seven billion on Earth, I am a silent existence, just as they are to me. Remove me—see how much the world cares. But of course, a small part of it cares (I hope.) And though only hundreds out of billions, that is still hundreds of times bigger than one. And every person has those kinds of connections, all meshed together so that every action is compounded by our relationships, our undying ties to the world. The snowball effect, the butterfly effect—though we can never know the effects of one drop, each is indispensable. Maybe not so much in the present, but with time, each action and decision is amplified; our lives, however miniscule right now, become connected with every corner of the world, and like water droplets elevated into clouds, we’ll travel the world.
By reflecting upon those inevitable what-ifs in life, I slowly began to see everything as what-ifs: not just actions and decisions, but placements, timings. All so tiny and seemingly insignificant, but yet so essential to how our world looks today.
Suddenly, the entire globe broke down into grains of individual actions, miniscule specks that I could cusp in my hands. I could see the single particles, which seemed to sprawl all over, and I imagined myself as one of those tiny crumbs, hiding beneath pounds and pounds of history. Perhaps it may seem counterintuitive, but in that moment I felt good about myself, the solace and acceptance of my tiny little drop in this ocean.
Of course, I will still study for my calculus tests. I will still cross my fingers when the judges are announcing the winners. I will still strive to be the best, to fulfill my ambitions and goals, and to — to just do something of value, something that leaves a mark. I will do it all the same, but now with a different mindset. I am not looking for a corner of a page in the history books. I’ve stopped that desperate search for the limelight and the hidden treasure. I am small, and my name can be forgotten between now and eternity. I don’t mind so much anymore.
To me, what awaits after death isn’t an afterlife, or reincarnation. It is a nameless continuation where all my achievements and deeds and smiles resonate through the future. For all my actions and decisions, their consequences are compounded by the sands of time, like small water molecules accumulating into a cloud. And though soon it may be indistinguishable which little floating cloud is mine, I know it will be up there somewhere. So back on earth, I continue toiling in this life, awaiting a time when I get to rise up from the ocean and into the heavens, knowing that what I’ve done has been, however small, something worthwhile.
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