Nobody is special.’

Or so says Jon Beckett.

I often go through times of wondering why I even bother writing blog posts that garner so little engagement. Everyone’s blogging now right? So what’s special about mine? How can you feel like you’re contributing to the world around you when everything’s already been done by someone else? There’s nothing new under the sun they say.

That, my friends, is a lie. I give you snowflakes. I googled the idea that they are all different and got this: ‘All snowflakes are unique, sort of. The short answer is, yes, because each ice crystal has a unique path to the ground. They will float through different clouds of different temperatures and different levels of moisture, which means the ice crystal will grow in a unique way.’

So maybe only one person responds to something we say or write or do. But maybe it helped them. When I remind myself about how precious each individual life is, the number of likes or shares or comments ceases to be important. If my writing makes one person’s day a little bit easier or more hopeful then my work is done.

I am so weary of people dismissing our older generation as dispensable. I’m so fed up with the value of a person being measured by how many followers they have and watching people dance themselves into fleeting popularity. I’m so saddened when I hear that someone didn’t think they mattered enough to keep on living. Every single person counts. If we remember that, life could be utterly different.

We need to treasure the ‘worthless’, name the numbers, honour the brushed over, see the invisible and remember the forgotten. We should treat every smile, hello, blog post,Facebook comment or tweet as a tiny way to do that. It is to see ourselves as people who have a unique snowflake’s chance to do something that makes a difference. In a way that nobody has done before.

So Jon, I would say to you that everyone is special because everyone is unique. No-one ever has the exact same experience, behaviour and contribution as someone else.

Snowflakes, see?