How much do the 'petty' things in life really matter?

I’m not trying to say that hardships or frustrations are by any means petty, just that maybe some perspective would help…

There are over 6,800,000,000 people on this planet, and that number grows almost by the second. (Compliments of this cool website that updates the world population. http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop)

Our planet is 1 of 8 in our solar system.

Our sun, the nearest star, in our galaxy is 93 million miles away (It would take a space shuttle 7 months to fly there)

Our sun is one of over 200 billion stars in the milkyway galaxy.

That means there are many solar systems just in our galaxy.

Our galaxy alone is almost unfathomable. Pictures of the milkyway show our sun as a tiny dot and our planet is not even recognizable.

The Hubble Space Telescope estimates that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.

So what does all this mean?

It means that our universe might be infinitely large. No one really knows the extent of the universe.

I can’t help but feel small (not unimportant, just small..)

And I can’t help but wonder what else is out there and what our purpose here is..

It’s as if we are tiny specks in this infinite universe..

I wonder how our world would be different if everyone gazed up at the night sky once in a while. Would people really get as upset over little things? Would people still frantically hurry places? Would people really need that new pair of shoes? Would they still get upset if a friend didn’t call?

What about all the devastating events that occur in our world?

All the ethnic conflicts, the land conflicts, the exchange of oil for weapons that allows a people to be massacred..

A quote from the (Iranian) astronaut comes to mind:

“If people can see Earth from up here, see it without those borders, see it without any differences in race or religion, they would have a completely different perspective. Because when you see it from that angle, you cannot think of your home or your country. All you can see is one Earth…”

- Anousheh Ansari

I put her nationality in parentheses for a reason… (perhaps I shouldn’t have even included it..)