Who doesn’t feel small standing beside the ocean? Seeing the waves rolling in, water as far as the eye can see.
But I have another place where the size of our world really hits me, where I realize just how small I am.
The airport.
All those people rushing this way and that.
Some heading off somewhere new, some heading home.
Some traveling for pleasure, some for work, some to make a trip they never wanted to be on.
Some heading to see friends, some headed home alone, some to meet someone new.
Some headed to places I’ve been, some to places I want to go, some to places I’ve never even heard of.
Sitting across from someone at a gate that I’ll never see again, someone who has her own set of stories. Her own family, friends, hurts, triumphs… that I’ll never know anything about.
Everyone there, with their own story.
Their own little world made up of the people they know and the things they’ve done.
Just like I have my own little world.
Every single person with people and issues that are important to them.
Every single person with the opportunity to make some sort of difference in this world.
Yet, we won’t ever know the majority of their stories. Maybe not any of them.
But each person: going about their lives, each important in their own right.
It makes me marvel at just how big our world can be and just how small my own can be.
Do you have those moments when you realize just how big our world is?
Sometimes I think about my friends who’ve traveled to third world countries, and how much stuff I have compared to the rest of the planet. And I’m ashamed to think it’s not enough. We’re all just specks of dust… but loved and valued just the same.
So very true. I often think I don’t have enough… but really, compared to so much of the world, I do.
Like Becky, and you – travel makes me feel small. Airports, third worlds countries where there is a lot of poverty, traveling to places like Egypt and Thailand, where the poverty is immense, has made me realize how random our circumstances really are! For all I could complain about – I have nothing to complain about….
So true!
Airports always get me thinking. So do hospitals and the DMV.
Love how you shared stopping to appreciate the humanity here. It’s so easy to forget, you know?
The DMV for me as well- wrote about it earlier this week, actually! 😉
My husband loves watching documentaries about the Universe – the Milky Way, planets etc.
That makes me feel really tiny and insignificant. Truly just a speck. 🙂
That’s all we are, really.
It’s the ultimate people watching experience. It is strange to sit there and have full conversations with people only to know that you’ll never talk to or see them again.
It really is so weird.
I’ve always found the airport fascinating.
So much great people-watching!
Like some of the previous comments have said, traveling always makes me feel that way. How crazy it is that by some random set of circumstances I was born in one place and not another.
Yes, so true!
I was surprised years ago when I visited another continent and found the people I talked to worried about the same things I did.
I think we’re all more alike than different.
I am always amazed at the sheer volume of humanity that travels through airports and who inhabit major cities.
But then, I am always touched to the core by how we sometimes connect with one individual of the millions. Helping a mom who is traveling alone, struggling with a stroller and tired kids or a person slowed by disabilities.
Some time ago I had a completely chance encounter in a hotel lobby part-way across the country. It was with a mom who started a casual conversation only to have it turn into a genuine heart to heart because apparently I had something—information and resources—she needed to help her through a tough situation.
Pretty cool how we all connect, I think.
So amazing that all that can happen from a random chance encounter!
I’ve never really thought of the airport like that. I’m usually too excited to get where I’m going to even think about how “small” I am in comparison to what is going on in the world.
I always end up at the airport early and I never have a direct flight anywhere, so I have more time to sit and think. 😉
Yepz, I’ve had those moments … but no matter how small we feel, we are making an important contribution to our world. We are.
Love that.
I travel alot with my company and spend 2 days a week at airports. I’ve shed many tears sitting in my seat observing our military men and women saying goodbyes. I’ve been blessed to be at a gate where it was decorated for a young girl who was flying to Disneyworld for Make a Wish Foundation. Airports can be sad but also very happy. My mom lives in Montana and i enjoy arriving and seeing her sweet face at the baggage claim. Great post!
The Disney thing would have made me cry.
I like in a military town but most of the goodbyes are on base, not in our airport. 😉
Airports do it for me, too. Also really large cities, especially places where you hear people speaking a variety of languages. It makes me realize how close together yet far apart people can really be!
Big cities usually make me feel it in an overwhelmed sort of way.
On the highway. Everyone is in such a rush. Speeding off here and there. Especially here I see license plates from everywhere. Crazy to think of all these people here from everywhere else!
Oh, for sure!
I have to say standing by the ocean makes me feel that way. Never thought about it in regards to the airport but it’s certainly true. The world is an incredible complex place yet it can also feel so small.
Ocean always does it for me as well.
Have you seen those Planet Earth Movies from Discovery Channel? Those make you realize how small the world is.
I love airports and seeing all the mixed emotions. I always think about the opening (or closing?) segment in Love Actually that talks about airports.
Can you believe I’ve never seen Love Actually?
My first time I felt small like that was when I first traveled abroad. I was studying in Italy. I thought DAMN all this (meaning the bustling streets of Florence) has been going on my whole life and only now that I see and hear do I realize it. I felt very small. Not in a bad way. It was important to learn how the little silly things I invested so much thought into…didn’t really matter. Strange that I felt empowered by feeling smaller.
Sounds like it was a wonderful experience!
My problems seem smaller when I realize just how big our world is.
I have those moments too. I had one last week when we found out about a very serious domestic abuse issue going on right on our street that nobody knew about. It’s startling to realize how small our own world can be and how much we miss out on because we are so busy and wrapped up in our world.
So easy to miss what else is going on around us.
Wow– you are right. My kids will often ask me, where is that person going- to which I reply how would I know, I don’t even know who they are. It really is a big world and we just really never know what those around us are going through.
No, we just brush past people and probably won’t ever know.
Oh yes. I feel so small in the grand scheme of things. You don’t really realize it until you step outside of your boundries…meaning crawling out of your house…kidding 🙂
Sometimes, I like to just stay in my house. 😉
So very true. Even just driving around doing our daily routines we don’t see the same cars(Except maybe at school) but how often do you see the same people at the grocery store? Wal-Mart? The world is huge. We have no idea what is going outside of ours. Love this.
So true. So many people and stories out there.
I actually really love airports, and walmart and grocery stores, where I can connect with people, even if it’s just for an hour or 5 minutes…those people have all changed me, found their way into a sentence or chapter of my own story. I find that when I reach out, smile at strangers, strike up a conversation with someone I may never see again…those are the moments that my life changes, opens up, opens ME up.
But yes, I also know how SMALL I am, how SMALL my own story might be in this great big world…yet I’m thankful for that…for the ability to be a SMALL part of this BIG world.
I loved this post. Needed it today.
xxox
The bigness of our world makes my problems seem smaller.
I remember being in Disney World in November one year and it was packed. So many people and it made me think it is always like that. That thousands (if not more) of people happened to be there at the same time all with their own stories.
Any place like that, for sure!
Oh you’re so right about the airport. So many worlds packed in one space, it’s really amazing how outside of myself I feel when I’m in an airport. But it’s a good feeling too, knowing there is such a big world out there.
It is a good feeling!
The airport does make you feel small, doesn’t it? I always get a panicky feeling there too – not because I am afraid to fly, but probably b/c of the amount of people rushing about and the fact that I have only flown a couple times in my life.
It is a lot of people, isn’t it? Except in my hometown airport. LOL
Watching Felix Baumgartner’s 24-mile free-fall from the edge of space this week made me feel tiny. I can only imagine how it must have made him feel.
That was totally crazy!
I’ve never really thought about the airport and all the people in it I’m usually in such a rush to get wherever it is I’m going But you’re so right. When you stop to think about all the stories of all people there at any given day or even hour, it does make you feel very small.
I always end up waiting at the airport, especially for connections.
I actually do that a lot whenever I’m traveling because I always think it would be interesting to strike up a convo with people just to see how their lives are. I actually get to do that now with my new job so its very interesting.
It is interesting to hear others’ stories.
Airports definitely make me feel small. But they also give me a sense of possibility, you can go anywhere, do anything type of feeling. A sense of adventure. I sort of love just people watching at an airport bar.
So true! !
Definitely with you on the airport! Some of them are the size of a city to begin with! I also feel that way when I visit downtown Annapolis, Baltimore and/or DC on a beautiful day and hear all of the tourists around us. To my family, they are everyday places but to some, they are brand new. It makes me happy that so many people come to visit where we live from places so very far away.
Oh, I bet! Cities are another place I feel it.
Linking up late today… my parents are here which means sneak-blogging! 🙂
I do love to people watch, but I will confess that I’ve never really thought about it in the airport. I’m an anxious traveler and I’m usually too busy trying to calm my nerves!
I do get that way when I see a rainbow or the ray of the sun reflecting through the clouds and I wonder how far it reaches and who else can see what I see.
Enjoy your visit.
Love that about a rainbow.
Totally agree, I think blogging has actually make me realize even more that people are made up of all different kinds of stories, most of which we will never know.
I do love that about the blog world!
I think I’m so stuck in my own world, I don’t even think about it most of the time
I think most of us are a lot of the time!
Wow! I can’t believe how well our posts match today. I swear I didn’t even look at yours until mine was already posted. I guess great minds think alike.
Sandy
For sure. 😉
I’ve definitely had those moments of feeling small. Funny because I was just thinking about this as I sat in the airport last night before boarding the red eye. Airports definitely do it for me and every time I take the subway, especially in a city like New York where the stories that bring people to the city and the stories of their lives are so varied.
Airports- such a great place for thinking. Who knew? 😉
You evoked some really powerful images for me in this post – kind of have the chills thinking about how we’re all the same, yet oh so different. Every now and then I’ll be sitting in a waiting room of some sort or at the airport as you highlighted, and I’ll look around in awe and think: every one of these people has ideas and hopes and dreams and judgments and loves – just like I do. They each have a life they’re trying to lead as best they can. Blows me away how small we all really are. Great topic and post (as always!).
And amazing how God knows each of us intricately. It is inconceivable. My husband actually gets those thoughts sometimes on the weekends driving around our ever-growing suburban area. He always notes all the cars and all the people, all doing their own thing and how crazy it is. Cool post!
I do think about that sometimes, but usually when I’m at an amusement park or somewhere where there are throngs of people in line. It’s so weird how tiny a part we actually play in the big picture, yet we are equally as important as the next stranger.
I often feel this at the airport too! And I yearn to know their stories and start talking to strangers sometimes just to get a little tid bit of their life. It is SO very interesting to me too, Shell. So many people, SO very many stories…
The state fair….all those people, ripe for good people watching, and I think, wow. The world is so big and wide, with so many people are willing to eat a deep-fried Krispy Kreme burger with mustard! 🙂
I love those moments where I realize how big and vast the world is!
I think about this all the time like when I am sitting in traffic or especially when I am in a large crowd in an arena or theater. Especially then because it’s neat to think that despite all the differences we probably have in our lives, everyone in that room as at least one thing in common.