Grains of Sand

If you ever wonder about your purpose in life, and whether your life is important, consider for a moment a long stretch of sand, glistening in the sun. Each and every grain of sand that makes up that expanse is a part of the whole. Without a single grain of sand, there would be no expanse at all. Every grain of sand is needed. Your importance is not related to the size of your role in life, either. Every single person who is alive now is needed to be a part of the whole. We are all grains of sand, and we are all shining in the sun. Together we create a marvelous expanse, don't you think?

Speaking of grains of sand, here is one of my all-time favorite poems, by Edgar Allan Poe, which I am fond of reciting by the fireside:

A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?