What sort of effect do you have on other people?

Have you ever wondered how you affect other people’s lives? You’d like to think it was a good effect, wouldn’t you? People would leave you feeling better about themselves and about you as a person. Sometimes this is true and other times, quite the reverse is the case - we leave people feeling hurt and upset – even though that may not have been our intention. We have all experienced the thought: ‘if only I could have changed what I said or did’, but many of us don’t have an opportunity to undo what has happened or take back what was said.

Some of you may have read “Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom, which tells the moving story of Eddie who is accidentally killed on his 83rd birthday saving a young girl from certain death. He wakes in heaven and is taken on a journey ‘back in time’ to meet five people whose lives he has affected. The strange thing about the journey is that Eddie does not always know the people and is totally oblivious to the impact he has had on someone else’s life.

Ironically, while his life has intersected with other people’s, in an almost random way, the theme that runs through the book is that nothing is random and there are no random acts in life.
Eddie reflects on his life and realises he has had a far greater impact on other people’s lives than he ever gave himself credit for while he was alive. Some people have been saved by Eddie’s actions, one has lost his life and others have been affected for the better by his deeds. Ultimately Eddie realises that in spite of his bitterness, anger and regret about his life, he has made a difference to many people’s lives and Talia the last person he meets, helps him see this in the most emotional way imaginable.

In the book: “The Butterfly Effect” by New York Times bestselling author, Andy Andrews, shares some real life stories of how one person’s actions affected not one, not five but millions of people’s lives for the better. He begins the book by recounting how in 1963, Edward Lorenz presented a hypothesis to the New York Academy of Science which stated that:
“A butterfly could flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion, which would move other molecules of air, which in turn would move even more molecules, eventually capable of starting a hurricane on the other side of the planet.”

While this theory was dismissed and ridiculed, years later physics professors announced The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions’, which supports the notion that the first movement of any form of matter – including people - can result in very different outcomes.
Andrews gives some wonderful real life experiences of how individuals have changed the course of history and changed the world forever because of a single action or words said. Take Norman Borlaug, for example, or George Washington Carver or Henry Wallace, and I’m guessing that you don’t know who these people are, but they were scientists, Henry Wallace was a former Vice President of the USA and by their very actions, individually and collectively, were responsible for hybridized high yield, disease resistant corn and wheat for arid climates, which have in turned saved billions of people’s lives.

The message is clear. Each of us has huge potential to influence other people’s lives – either directly or indirectly. Your actions and your words can make a difference – positive or negative on one person’s life or maybe thousands of people can be affected by what you say and do.

Don’t underestimate the power of one person (yourself included) to change the world, to change the course of history, or simply to change the life of one other person for the better. Life is not as random as it seems and the people you meet and interact with may in turn be changed forever because of your words or your actions.

As Andrews says in his conclusion:
“Your life …
And what you do with it today
Matters Forever. "