Snowflake. Small microscope kept outdoors. Snapshot camera held to eyepiece focus set to infinity. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One is the loneliest number that there ever was. Sometimes I get trapped in my head thinking of the impact I want to have on the world. I crave a more meaningful and significant life. Whenever I’m stuck in this place, I am alone. I don’t see myself connected to others.
Nobody has ever accomplished anything in this world alone.
Any change in the world you admire required someone to work with others (even if indirectly). They made the invisible idea in their head real to others. A following or a movement was built. The idea reached critical mass. The spread of ideas, inventions or innovations requires others.
I am writing alone. My ideas have come from others. You can read this because people collaborated to build WordPress, another group of people started a company that handles email subscription/RSS feeds, and some other people in California built something called Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
We worship our individuality and uniqueness (at least in the West). There’s nobody in the world like you. You’re like a snowflake. Unique and precious. Let’s say that’s true.
Now what?
A snowflake’s power is not in their uniqueness. It is in the unified blanket of snow created in accumulating numbers. Alone, it has little impact. A lone snowflake is often doomed to vanish into a tiny puddle. Presented en masse and snowflakes repaint the world.
A single snow flake does not a blizzard make. Stop worshiping your uniqueness. Don’t melt away, snowflake. Accumulate with others. You might make a unique difference.
Do you keep trying to go it alone? Is it working? Maybe it’s time to tap into the power of accumulation.
