”If you examine a life... do you really examine the life, or do you examine the shadow it casts on other lives?”
— From the National Book Award winning novel The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
“The shadow we cast” is a powerful thought. It’s also a huge responsibility.
Assessing our own life in a vacuum is really just a history project. If we consider our existence in the context of how we impact others, it feels so much more important. Also, it’s arguable that we contribute to the world more through helping others accomplish great things than through our own individual achievements. Just think about the network effect: if we help someone else be better, they touch many other people, and hopefully, good begets greater good.
Instead of focusing only on our own scoreboard, let’s all try to “examine” the shadow we cast on the lives of others.
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