Whether we like it or not, we are here. We have no choice in when or where we’re born or to whom. We’re forced into this world with no say and no ability to fend for ourselves. We’re vulnerable and unbelievably delicate, susceptible to the minutest changes. In our first days, months, or even years of life, we have no idea what we’re doing or why we are here.

We may not want to be where we are right now, but somehow, we still find ourselves here.

We all have a life purpose, and part of that purpose is responsibility. Accountability. No, we have not chosen our lots in life. You may not even want to be here, whether “here” be in America or even, more generally, on Earth. Regardless of whether or not our situations are reflections of our true desires, we still have responsibilities to uphold.

We are still human beings. By merely existing, we have an impact, an impact we need to take individual and collective responsibility for. Even by just eating a meal, taking a shower or blowing a nose, we have an impact on the environment. By watching the news, we learn about things and choose to act or not. Arguably, these things I just listed are small, small events relative to a much larger scale. If anything, their impact is negligible. However, with billions of people performing trillions of acts of negligible size, our impacts grow colossally in magnitude.

You may not care about the environment, politics or distant wars and I can’t make you. In fact, you can stop reading this right now and continue to run from the issues staring you in the face. You can ignore your responsibilities and join the collective movement justifying themselves by declaring the decline of our world inevitable. One person can’t make a difference anyway.

This type of thinking is flawed and dangerous, just as dangerous as the over-zealous marketing of strict, close-minded belief. You don’t need to think too hard to see how billions and trillions of tiny impacts can sum together to create a huge cascade of events. Although your impact might be comparatively small, there are over seven billion more people in the world and they too don’t recycle sometimes, they too ignore the problems in the Middle East, they too ignore the homeless in their neighborhood. You don’t need more information to open your mind to the possibility that if all people think the way you think, if you spread your mentality, that the world is going to be in a lot of trouble.

One of the most primitive and dangerous diseases infecting us now is apathy and this idea that small individual efforts to improve upon something larger are futile. If you, just singular you, do not care enough to do the small things to improve the lives of others in the future, then yes, catastrophes of apocalyptic proportions are indeed inevitable. If you share your mindset of futility then yes, congratulations, you will get exactly the outcome you predict. You will be able to say “See, I told you there was nothing we could do, look at the mess we’re in.”

But if you care, if you look at the things you value and wish to preserve, you may find some small incentive to work towards something larger than yourself. You may, in fact, find that this newfound sense of responsibility and purpose gives you more meaning than you had before. And maybe, you’ll be able to witness the impact that your actions have on the larger world.