THE WORLD IS TOO BIG TO DIE IN GBAGADA

“The Pale Blue Dot”

The first utterance that comes out of my mouth every morning—I never get tired of saying it. I’ll probably keep saying it until I finally leave: The world is too big to die in Gbagada.

The world is vast, incomprehensibly so. This perspective helps me put things into context. At this very moment, something groundbreaking is happening somewhere, and simultaneously, something utterly insignificant is happening as well. Someone is changing the course of history, and someone else is stuck in traffic, fuming over a minor inconvenience. When I worry too much, I remind myself of this vastness. Whatever is troubling me likely doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It’s freeing—and humbling.

Recently, I found myself drawn to The Pale Blue Dot, the iconic photograph taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 from about 2 billion miles away. In the image, Earth is nothing more than a speck—a pale blue dot suspended in a beam of sunlight. Carl Sagan described it perfectly when he said, “Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives on that mote of dust.”

I wasn’t alive when that photo was taken, but I can’t help but wonder: what were my parents doing at that exact moment? From 2 billion miles away, their actions, no matter how significant they seemed to them, were invisible—just like ours are today. It’s a strange comfort, realizing that no matter how much we stress or how big we think our mistakes are, from a distance, they’re nothing.

And yet, this same vastness can make you feel insignificant. It’s easy to feel like just another ant in a colony, yearning to be noticed, to make an impact. We want to build something that lasts—to prove, somehow, that our lives mattered. But what we often forget is that our idea of significance is skewed. We think it’s about being seen, being recognized. In reality, significance is subjective. What truly matters is how you define it for yourself.

Satisfaction, though, is a hard thing to master. It sounds simple—just accept that things are as they’re meant to be—but for most of us, it’s elusive. We live in a world that thrives on dissatisfaction. The ads we see, the lives we compare ourselves to on social media—all of it feeds the idea that we’re not enough. But sometimes, when I’m on a flight and the plane approaches a city, I see things differently. From above, the sprawling city looks like a miniature model—houses, cars, people—all so small and insignificant. In that moment, I’m reminded of ants building their colonies, oblivious to the fact that someone might be watching.

Maybe we’re not so different. We fight, build, destroy, and repeat the cycle, believing our actions are monumental. Maybe no higher species is watching us—or maybe there is. But either way, the cycle continues, and we’re just participants in it, trying to make sense of our lives.

So the next time you feel like you’ve made the worst mistake of your life, stop. Don’t let the weight of the world crush you. Instead, ask yourself: How do I feel, and what can I do to feel better for myself?Forget about what others think, because from 2 billion miles away, you’re just an atom on a pale blue dot. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s a reminder that no matter how small we are, our experiences still matter—to us.

The world is too big to die in Gbagada—or anywhere else for that matter. So live. Build your little corner of joy and significance, and let that be enough.