What is the Point of My Life?

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how much of history has been lost to us.

I was sent down this thinking spiral again when I recently watched a video where an individual explained the difference between the medical model and social model of disabilities. It was fascinating and had great points that are relevant to what is happening with medicine and disabilities today.

I wonder how many conversations like this existed in previous societies? The ones not captured in our textbooks?

How much time did other people spend identifying what wasn’t working for their people, creating new ways, and then trying to help people transition to new ways?

Thinking of things like this often makes me feel like an ant. Like I am just this one tiny creature doing things that won’t matter in the grand extraction of human life.

No one 1000 years from now will care about my private practice, my views on mental health, what I share about autism, and more.

"Thinking About Life" Illustration by Jackie Schul

This view can quickly lead one to think negatively… does anything I do matter? What’s the point?

Well, just like the video I watched today, the point is that it matters NOW. It can enhance people’s lives now, and that alone is valid.

The video I watched this morning will not matter in 100 years. In fact, I cannot even find it now. However, it mattered to me this morning. It helped me conceptualize and articulate a subject that is often muddled with complexity. That is valuable to me as a therapist, as an autistic individual, and as someone who works with those who have disabilities.

People often come to therapy searching for more meaning in their lives. They want their lives to matter.

I think finding that means letting go of stereotypical notions of what a “significant” life is. As children in our education system, we’re taught about people who've done massively impactful things. That will not be the majority of us. And that is ok.

What matters is that we can do things that light us up. That we can be present to those around us and contribute in the ways that feel good to us.

This will have far more impact, both on others and on ourselves, than endlessly striving for a life that alters the course of humanity.

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