The Impact that Each of Us Makes Ripples Out Far Beyond the Bounds of What a Human Can Truly Understand

First published on October 6, 2021

At the end of a project like the one I finished working on today, a thing that I often forget becomes abundently clear: the impact of the contribution that each of us makes ripples out far beyond the bounds of what a human can truly understand.

Perhaps, in fact, I've never really understood that until this moment.

Without wanting to be too much of an armchair social historian, it strikes me that that wasn't always true. If I was the blacksmith in a small village hundreds of years ago, I would see the impact of my work, every day. And, yes, it would ripple out into the world gradually beyond the 150 or so people I might know well. But nothing like today. Most of the people who it rippled out to would come into contact with me at some point in the future, perhaps even in the next few weeks or months.

Today, I can be in a Zoom room five or six times with a group of people over a period of six months, sharing, facilitating and teaching, and those 20 people, each in some way impacted by the programme we have been through together, will go out into the world. And they, connected via their work in all its forms, will have an impact which, too, will ripple out far beyond them. And that will ripple out to countless people in countless disciplines in countless cities and countries around the world, and that is hard enough to hold by itself.

But, more, the work I did on the programme was a collaboration, as part of a team, so there is no 'Robbie's impact', really, or anything that clearly defined. A project conceived of by others but developed and delivered by our small team, with hard-to-gauge impacts on a group of 20+ people, all of whom will have hard-to-gauge impacts on other groups of people, and on into the world.

This article, of course, is the same. An act of creativity sparked by an experience, shared via this magical and nebulous web of communication. Some people will write a comment on this piece, perhaps, expressing the impact. Others may 'like' it, which I can infer something from, and more still will read it. And then with that small impact from reading this, you will go out into the world, have your own impact, and so it ripples on.

And none of that is it is an impact that a human can truly hold onto. Can truly understand. Or, at least, none of that is an impact that this human can truly hold onto and truly understand. Or, at least, not yet.

This mismatch between the impact we have, in all its intangible, rippling glory, and the impact that we as humans can feel, is important. For us to weather the storms of life, we need to refuel and to refresh ourselves. We need to replenish our supplies of energy. And one of the ways we do that is to make meaning of the world. Is to feel and understand we are part of something bigger.

As communication advances, more and more of us will step into a way of working with intangible and marginal impacts, and, so, we need to make our own meaning of the work that we do. We need to find the ways to capture, express, remember and share the impact of our work. Or, at least, I do.

Or, it needs to be an act of faith and trust. A faith that, if we show up in a certain way in our work and our life, we are having the impacts that count. A trust that if we create certain conditions in the way we choose to live, our impact will ripple out, along with everyone else's, and slowly transform the world in the only way it ever really does transform: a slow evolution.

A trust and a faith that if we are here, if we are holding to values that we believe make the world better and avoid making it worse, then we are doing what we can. A trust and a faith that if we are putting the unique mix of talents and ideals that make us who we are to use in the world, then that is enough.

And, despite all that, despite the fact that I've written it before, that I've been doing my best to do it for many years, it is good, sometimes, to be reminded of the impact and reach of our work. No matter how large or small the influence you have on someone, no matter how large or small the contribution you make to an idea or project, that is you, changing the world.

So, sometimes: slow down, think about that, take a breath, and be grateful that you - little you - can indeed change the world.