Are you relevant

[Ms DD]

There was an editorial in today's Red Eye, a free supplement to the Chicago Tribune (that's about as well written as a high school paper), but some of their columns can be interesting or at least thought provoking.

 

Today's editorial, by Jimmy Greenfield, which I'm snipping the politics out of, because that's not what this question is about... is a little thought provoking

 

 

Are you relevant

 

.....

 

I'm going to focus on the real point of this column, which is to ask a simple question:

 

How are you relevant?

 

The question is vague enough that I won't blame you for moving right along to the RedHot page so you can give your brain a rest. So take your time, think about it, and I'll be waiting at the next paragraph when you're done.

 

Welcome back. I hope that didn't take too long, but even if it did, I think it's a good mental exercise to ask the question and attempt to answer it.

 

Because if you don't know how you're relevant, then what the hell are you doing with your life?

 

I consider it part of my job to occasionally kick people in the butt and encourage them to rethink their lives and priorities.

 

It's a privilege to be able to reach thousands of people when I'm provided this space in RedEye, and I can assure you this column is one of the ways I feel like I matter.

 

To be fair, I'm at a stage in my life where figuring out how I can make a difference is pretty easy. I've got a wife and two young kids, and I'm perfectly happy to devote almost all my energies to them.

 

It's easy to see that I matter when a 15-month-old cries out my name as I walk out the door. True, he also cries out for his banana every morning, but the fact is bananas are quite delicious and, without a doubt, very relevant.

 

I need to point out that I do realize it's possible to be a difference-maker, but on the devil's side of things. So I come into this with the assumption that nobody, not even Bush and his cronies, thinks of himself as a bad guy.

 

One of the most memorable quotes of all time comes from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden," and it goes like this: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

 

I'm far more likely to quote from "Anchorman" than I am from a 19th-Century book, but that one always stuck with me.

 

It scared me, and it has relevance to what I'm talking about today.

 

The alternative to not being relevant, to not having a say in your life and the world around you, is to be irrelevant, and that's a frightening concept. Accepting irrelevance should be unacceptable to anybody who wants his or her life to have meaning.

 

So go out and make yourself relevant.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

So how about it, are you relevant? In what way? I really need to give this question some thought... When I read the above, I remembered the number of SOLERS having a say in the politics sections, but if we are honest, we are still irrelevent as we are sitting our behinds behind screen with no action to back it up.

 

There's a poem that's incorrectly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, that's defines success...

 

What is Success?

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people

and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;

To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by

a healthy child, a garden patch

or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed

easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

 

Is success what makes a person relevant? By the above definition, that is what makes a person relevant...

[Pujah]

OK who is going to answer this and say they think they’re insignificant? I think we all contribute something one way or another….. and yes the world will cease to exist if I wasn’t in it

[Yaabka-Yaabkiis]

when your productivity is noticable to your self as well others is when you are relevant or exist ..

[chubacka]

^^^ so if your productivity goes unnoticed you dnt exist lol.I would like to meet some ppl that dnt exist.

 

 

Pujah your right everyone does contribute something however small.

 

but today at work I contributed absolutly nothing...mayb i dnt exist....hmmmm

[Yaabka-Yaabkiis]

"but today at work I contributed absolutly nothing...mayb i dnt exist....hmmmm"

 

At least you are working: you are relevant..but you are not contributing: you are dull...

[umu zakaria]

wooohoooooow! Ms DD for a second i thought u were infact A MAN? a wife n kids? am i the only1 confused here?

 

Yes am very very relevant.

[chubacka]

Originally posted by Yaabka-Yaabkiis:

 

At least you are working: you are relevant..but you are not contributing: you are dull...

:mad:

 

I am not dull, jst being lazy Ya ya. dnt cal me that again or else I'll find you whereva you hiding, did you say you work nights?

 

even betta for a quick getaway