The Smallest Ripple

Is this all there is?
I keep asking myself if this is really all that life is.  Then I ask myself what I expected it to be.  We wake up, we go to work or school or outside to play (those things if we are lucky) and we talk to people and have a drink or a meal and watch some TV or play with the kids or help them with homework and then we sleep so we can do it all again the next day.  We do that until we die.
Is there a point to it?
We go to work to make money to buy stuff like food and clothes and shelter and fun so that we can eat and be warm.  Are we just surviving so that we can eventually die, hopefully after having had a bit of fun and having done something worth while?  How does this make us any different than any other animal?
Are we different?
Looking at the way we treat most of the other living creatures on the planet, it would seem that we are better than them.  At least, that would be where we place ourselves.  But if we look at what life seems to be, a series of activities we perform in order to eat, be warm, be sheltered and happy it looks like we are doing the same thing even the smallest ant is doing.  Our methods are different, more complicated, but I am struggling to see any real difference.  We live to survive.  We are born to die.
But that is the beginning and the end.  That part is pretty simple.  The middle part is where it all becomes a bit muddled.  Is it really as cliche as to say it is what we do with the time we have that matters?  I keep staring at one thought trying to make sense of it.  Does anything we do really make a difference?
As soon as I wrote that down, an answer jumped out at me.  Yes.  It makes a difference to the people around us.  If I wake up and go to work I have made a bit of cash to satisfy a bit of Maslow for myself.  I have also helped my coworkers to get through their day a little easier.  The work I have done has helped to produce something that will save someone's life.  The money I spend on food will help someone else make money so they can eat and have a roof and clothes.  If I make a phone call to a friend and we go out for a night, we both benefit from laughing and talking so that the next day we might laugh and talk with someone else and they will do the same and so on and so on.  The butterfly effect.
The ripple I make will spread and can affect a lot of people.  So few of them know it, but it is happening all the time.  The keyboard I am typing on was made by someone who wants to make some money and to eat and to have a home to go to.  Have I ever thought, "thanks dude or lady who made this keyboard that is allowing me to write this which will in turn help me figure something out to alleviate my mood so that I might do something that will help someone else who will help someone else and on and on and on."
I am humbled and empowered. 

The enormity of this is now threatening to devour me.  At the same time that I can impact so much by simply waking up in the morning, it is humbling to think of how little I affect as well.  I doubt that this blog will affect the wars in the Middle East, but maybe it will (I recognize the absurdity of the notion).  Someone might read it and decide to stop fighting which might stop one other person and on and on.  There is potential in nearly every action we take to affect someone that could change the world.  It's like the movie Lady in the Water.  The words of one man put on paper could affect the life of some child who later becomes a world leader.  Then again, they might not.  They might just entertain someone for a few hours.  But even that has an effect.

I had no idea that me questioning the value of my life would lead me down this stream of thought.  But I am glad it did.  I have realized something.  What I am doing with my life may not be perfect for me at this moment, but it is affecting something.  Everything we do affects something or someone.  So, this is why it is so important to practice mindfulness everyday.  It is also an example of how we are all connected to each other.  We are all just trying to have food and shelter and to be happy, whatever that means.  Isn't that what all living things are trying to do?
Even the smallest stone causes a ripple.  Even the smallest action has value.  I guess this is as much a warning as it is hopeful.