The Great Paradox of Your Life

by Ben McMillen

I began writing a story about a tornado that ripped through our county in 1944, only to realize that nearly everyone who experienced it is gone. Their names, their voices, their memories, all fading with time. So I scraped that story and wrote this instead.

The Great Paradox of Your Life: In just a hundred years, every single one of us alive today will be gone.

The people you love, the ones who drive you crazy, the ones you secretly admire but never tell, will pass. The celebrities you follow, the politicians you argue about, the influencers filling your feed, all gone.

Even the people who once felt permanent, your parents, kids, your best friends, your mentors, your rivals, they’ll all exit the stage one by one. Some slowly, some suddenly.

The arguments will fade. The trends will vanish. The names that once filled your mind will dissolve into mostly obscure and forgotten history, just like the names of those who came before us.

It’s a hard truth to swallow, but also a freeing one. Because once you understand that this cast is temporary, you stop performing for them. You stop living your life as if you’re trying to win the approval of an audience that will one day disappear.

Instead, you start living for the moments that actually matter, the love you give without keeping score, the time you spend truly being there for anyone other than yourself.

The company around you will change. The story will end. But the way you treat people during your short time on this earth, that’s what echoes beyond you. That’s what shapes the future, one quiet act of decency at a time. That’s how we, together, move civilization forward. 

The stages we walk on, our homes, our workplaces, our favorite coffee shops, will be filled with new faces and new conversations. They’ll laugh, stress, argue, dream and cause drama just like we did. 

If you’re lucky, you get roughly seventy trips around the sun. Of those, maybe forty or fifty are spent as a so-called “productive” adult, the years where you build, create, hustle, raise families, make mistakes, and try your best to leave something good behind.

And that’s where the great paradox comes in.

On one hand, your existence is unbelievably small in the grand scheme. The universe doesn’t care about your job title, your follower count, or the exact date you were born. Stars will explode and galaxies will spin whether or not you get that promotion, buy that house, or check every box on your to-do list. Measured against cosmic time, your entire life isn’t even a blink. You are nothing.

But on the other hand, your life, your individual existence, means everything.

To you, this tiny window of time is all there is. It’s the only chance you get to feel the warmth of the sun, the sting of loss, the joy of laughter, the pride of creating something from nothing. It’s your one opportunity to show up, to care, to love people deeply, and to make the world around you a little brighter.

Your purpose isn’t to make a mark that lasts a million years. Your purpose is to make this brief life, this fragile, beautiful moment, count.

Be present for the morning coffee. The awkward hug. The unexpected kindness. The hard conversation that heals something deep. The sunset that stops you mid-sentence.

You will be forgotten someday. That’s not a tragedy, it's the truth. But the way you lived, the way you made people feel, the small good things you did, they ripple outward long after you’re gone. They shape the stories others tell, the values they carry, the kindness they pass on.

So don’t chase after some personal cosmic significance. Think bigger. Chase and search for human significance.

Be fully alive in the short time you’re given. Many years from now, long after we're all gone, the universe will decide if we did it right.