People are like rocks. They exist. They come in so many different shapes and sizes and they’re all perceived differently based on the person. Some of them look boring and ugly to some people inside and out. Some just look like a plain ol’ rock but you fiddle with it enough to crack it open and it looks really beautiful with many colors. Some are just pretty inside and out. Some you find in caves and others you find in deserts. Maybe hanging from above or sitting in a corner. But they all have one thing in common: They all have a purpose and don’t even know it. Certain rocks are home to an abundance of important creatures like fish or lizards. They become a foundation for the many landscapes we see around us not only in Hawai’i but places around the world. For thousands of years, our ancestors used rocks as tools that we have improved over generations. They seem so unimportant to some but that rock you saw on the side of the road is just as important as the ones you see in the ocean that provide homes for the fishes.

There are 7 billion people on this planet we call Earth and you’re only one little speck. Only a big handful have actually made a huge impact on the world which sometimes makes you ask yourself,  “Why am I even here? What’s my purpose?” Those who just feel like they are not worth a lot. Some who feel they don’t make an impact. People who have either considered, attempted, or actually committed suicide thinking they were put on Earth for no reason. The number of people who have been killed due to illness or murder. Sometimes you ask why certain people are born to this world, causing havoc and pain to those who were innocent. You, along with everyone else who was put here, is here for a reason we might not know. We may never even know ourselves. But that’s for us to find out.

Many of us are just normal, ordinary people. Not like sheep or baby ducks but we are sort of like followers in a sense. We do whatever we are told. We believe what everyone else believed. Conformity kept us all similar. With that, we had similar ideas. We were like an audience. Well, most of us are. Some are put here to set an example. Whether it be good or bad. You could try to prove that you are what many others should become or you are what people should avoid becoming. You learn who you want in your life or who you don’t need. Based on the opinions of others (which all vary based on the person), you decide if you do agree with a speaker’s ideas or not and if you want to spread that knowledge to others. Some who do take that path like to do so in different ways. Some which are successful, some that say otherwise. As a follower, you either do it because it’s what you believe or it’s what everyone else believes in so you keep going for the sake that you don’t get pushed out and criticized. Some don’t believe in what the majority follows so they spread their belief. Some follow them, some don’t follow them, and some show their disagreement in many… different ways.

Those who pave their own path for their followers to walk on either get the vote of their demographic whether it was quick and easy or long and difficult, or they don’t succeed and either give up or keep going till they die. Many of those who were successful were amazing and powerful people. So many people have changed the world for the better and that our generation (and hopefully our future generations) have the fortune of having these privileges that the generation before them never got to have. Sometimes, those who do become successful and have followers have ideas that some other parts of the world see as horrifying. Like the people in Russia and the homosexual concentration camps, the Middle East and terrorists and the other terrible things that happen in the Middle East, child marriage in many parts of the world outside of the US, many countries under dictatorship, starving children in Africa, underage trafficking, children who go into the wrong foster parents who only want them for money. I can go on. But maybe, just maybe, they were put here to change all of that. That they were put here so someone could make it just as nonexistent as making wheels out of rocks, bring more attention to this situation we don’t think about and be able to put a stop to it. It sounds awful that I would think this way, I know. But we need to be aware of what else is happening everywhere else. Maybe someone will be able to help these people. It’s our choice to leave it alone and use the horror stories of other people for their own personal gain or actually do something to help these people.

Even if you die, you serve a purpose. Not in the way that you rot and you feed detritivores and you become the Earth. The way that you become important to those who are still alive. People realize how important you were in their life. Maybe you do become part of a statistic. But, death brings attention. It turns heads. How many people die from suicide, how many people die from starvation. Even they matter. Sure, they’re not here but they become a statistic that some people want to decrease. Majority of people don’t like seeing other people die. So, if the person or people are inspired, this group of people put their energy into stopping it.

No matter how awful the world gets, no matter how meaningless you think you are, you have purpose. I may not know my purpose yet but I’m trying to find my potential. My dad didn’t think he was going to be an impact not only to myself but my friends. My dad also never thought he would become an inspiration to many people as a skimboarder. My grandmother didn’t think she was going to be the rock and backbone of her 29 grandchildren and 33 great grandchildren. I want to make an impact on the people around me when I grow up. I want to become a music teacher for middle school students. I want to be able to show them what music has done for my life. I want my students to be inspired the way I did when I was a child. I want my purpose to be to show people my love and maybe they will pick up that passion the way I did when I first picked up my instrument the same way my dad when he started skimboarding. But, life has a bunch of surprises up his sleeve. My true purpose is yet to be found. Like how a rock does not know its purpose, I do not know my own yet. But, I will one day. And so will you.