It is a great paradox that individually we are simultaneously everything and nothing. Through our own eyes, we are everything–e.g., when we die, the whole world disappears. So to most people (and to other species) dying is the worst thing possible, and it is of paramount importance that we have the best life possible. However, when we look down on ourselves through the eyes of nature we are of absolutely no significance. It is a reality that each one of us is only one of about seven billion of our species alive today and that our species is only one of about ten million species on our planet. Earth is just one of about 100 billion planets in our galaxy, which is just one of about two trillion galaxies in the universe. And our lifetimes are only about 1/3,000 of humanity’s existence, which itself is only 1/20,000 of the Earth’s existence. In other words, we are unbelievably tiny and short-lived and no matter what we accomplish, our impact will be insignificant. At the same time, we instinctually want to matter and to evolve, and we can matter a tiny bit–and it’s all those tiny bits that add up to drive the evolution of the universe.
这是一个巨大的悖论，就我们个人而言，我们同时是一切，又什么都不是。通过我们自己的眼睛，我们就是一切——例如，当我们死时，整个世界都消失了。因此，对于大多数人（以及其他物种）来说，死亡是最糟糕的事情，而我们拥有尽可能美好的生活至关重要。然而，当我们用自然的眼光看自己时，我们就毫无意义了。事实上，我们每个人都只是当今活着的大约七十亿物种中的一员，而且我们的物种也只是我们星球上大约一千万个物种中的一员。地球只是我们银河系中约 1000 亿颗行星之一，而银河系只是宇宙中约 2 万亿个星系之一。而我们的寿命大约只是人类存在的1/3,000，而人类本身也只是地球存在的1/20,000。换句话说，我们的渺小和短暂令人难以置信，无论我们取得什么成就，我们的影响都是微不足道的。与此同时，我们本能地想要发挥作用并进化，我们可以发挥一点点作用——正是所有这些微小的部分加起来推动了宇宙的进化。

The question is how we matter and evolve. Do we matter to others (who also don’t matter in the grand scope of things) or in some greater sense that we will never actually achieve? Or does it not matter if we matter so we should forget about the question and just enjoy our lives while they last?
问题是我们如何重要并如何发展。我们对其他人是否重要（在事物的宏观范围内他们也并不重要），或者在某种我们永远无法真正实现的更大意义上重要？或者说，我们是否重要并不重要，所以我们应该忘记这个问题，只在生命还在的时候享受生命？

source:https://www.principles.com/principles/265acc65-c766-4200-a042-2a40753b1fce/