Functional insignificance is the act of waking up each morning and powering through your day despite nagging feelings of insignificance; functioning despite the lack thereof.

I’ve struggled with feelings of insignificance throughout different periods of my life and have often contemplated the merit of significance.

Is it foundational?  A must have? What fruits does the belief of one’s own significance produce?

Power? Confidence? Capacity? Strength? Joy? Satisfaction?

Where does it come from?
How does one find it?
Does it come from a job? School? An accomplishment or title?
Is it measurable?
A balance in our bank account? The number of letters in our signature lines?
Can I find it in the number of followers I have on social media or the amount of money I tithe to the Church?

Is significance a product of being wanted or needed?
Being a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend, a sister, an aunt or cousin?
Is significance relational?
Can I find it in love? In sex? In community or family?

Is it in legacy?
How successful the ones who follow us are?

How can one find it and keep it forever?
Cultural significance was growing up believing that significance was on these terms of accomplishment and success.
But as quickly as external success can come, so too can it be stripped away.

The truth is, we are all replaceable.
The job we have has hundreds around us whose resumes read the same.
Relationships can be fragile and brittle, and people shift and transition a thousand times in their lifetimes.
There is a constant pendulum swing between important and obsolete.
From young to old,
new to dated,
working to laid off,
married to divorced;
nothing stays the same.

But as I crest over my mid 40s, I begin to realize,
significance isn’t so passing, it’s constant and accessible;
its woven in our DNA.

They say that comparison is the thief of happiness;
and sure, if I concentrate on these external measures there will always be something or someone that will invalidate the sense of significance I hustle to gather up for myself.

But isn’t significance in the fibre of our beings, our intrinsic make up?
Isn’t significance in the uniqueness’ we each have?
How special and irreplaceable is my own individuality.

Significance is the fingerprint of our souls and the way we express our own gifts,
in ways that are forever relevant and needed.
It amazes me the way different people lead with their gifts;
Some lead with their minds, their hearts, their kindness, their empathy, their wisdom, their counsel, their acceptance, their nonjudgement, their humour, their charity, their leadership, their inclusivity, their creativity; their forgiveness, their positivity, their organization, their drive, their independence…

Significance is as vast and diverse as a star filled sky,
and we each contribute in our own ways,
that butterfly effect that starts from within us and has an impact somewhere else.

I think as I work to chip away at external meanings and measures for significance,
I come to better understand;
we all have our own gifts.
And my advice to myself is to find or create my own lane;
and flourish and conquer the f*k out of it. <3