You Matter

When I recently addressed a large audience of inmates in a Tennessee prison, I began with the question, "Why am I here?" I paused for a few moments while everyone shifted in their seats and stopped side chatter long enough to wonder what this "smart-ass white boy" could possibly have to say to them. I looked out over the 400-some faces of men that could just as easily have been classmates of mine in school at a different time, or co-workers in the many different jobs I've had over several decades, and instead of looking at a bunch of orange-clad misfits and gladiator types, I saw in their faces a cross-section of America's men...all brothers, fathers, sons, uncles and even grandfathers of someone on the outside.

"Because you matter," I said. "Everyone of you sitting here in this room matters to someone on the outside, and if you're on the planet and breathing, you matter in some way to everyone else here." A silence fell across the cavernous cinderblock room with its steel cell doors that was poetically deafening. All ears and eyes were focused on what I had to say, and by the time I was finished they were on their feet, cheering.

Whether one is in prison of concrete and steel, or of the human mind and emotions, it's just the same: we all matter, and even though that may seem a little daunting to imagine that three billion people on this planet all matter...we do. We all have an impact on others, and eventually what we do, say and even think about ourselves and one another affects the world in some way. We will never know the good that we can do for the world by positively impacting even one other person, who may go on to positively impact thousands. Consider two men in South African prisons in the last century who were scorned and derided and treated as if they couldn't possibly matter to anyone in the world. One was Negro and the other Caucasian. The first was Nelson Mandela and the second Gandhi.

Stop and think for a minute before you consider anyone else being of little importance, and then think about yourself. You never know what that person might be capable of achieving, nor will they know what you are capable of doing or becoming. We all matter, or we wouldn't be here. Treat everyone with just that much regard, and we may live to see the day when the spirit of people like Mandela and Gandhi will be the rule, rather than the exception. Just remember: You matter. And so does everyone else. Everyone else.

Here is a short video clip from that address: