The Ripple Effect

The quote, "That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind," from the novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom, means, to me, that no matter what you do in your lifetime it can, and it will always link back to someone else. I feel that this could play out in a variety of different ways. It could be that you saw them across the street once and you really liked their hair or their clothes, so you changed your hair or bought clothes like that because you thought, "Hmm, they look pretty good, so why shouldn't I?" It might also be that you saw them in your favorite TV show or movie and their character impacted your life in some way on a small scale or maybe even quite a large one. They might be your favorite musician or artist and their music or their art shaped the way you listen to music, look at art, or made you want to become an artist of sorts yourself. Or maybe you've known them your entire life and you've grown up with them and when they changed you changed and you just really connected with them. Sometimes you don't even realize how they've impacted your life because it’s so small and miniscule but it ultimately shapes your personality and how you talk, eat, or simply the way your arms fall by your sides. 

This quote means that the world is constantly changing and people are constantly evolving and looking to others on how to do that. You're looking to your brothers and sisters and doing what they do to shape the way you want your life to be or how you need your life to be. However, the ways in which you are linked back to people aren't always going to be good. The reason that you are linked back to someone may be because they hurt you in some way or that you hurt them in another. Regardless, it will always happen. You will always be connected to someone. It can be someone you knew and loved dearly or someone you don't remember ever meeting in your life, like in the novel the quote comes from, Eddie meets those five people in heaven. There were people who he had known and loved and who he had never known anything about but a name, or nothing at all. In the end, we are always linked back to one another because we are all human and we all experience life together. This is, quite clearly, the ripple effect of life.