Billions, Quintillions, and an A, B, C . . . 1, 2, 3

I heard on the news Tuesday that the world’s projected population just surpassed eight billion. You and I are each one in 8,000,000,000. We each matter. We are here. Alive today.

We have also had snow every day this week in my area. I wondered how many snowflakes fall in an average snowstorm. My searches led me to numbers with even more zeroes—quintillions and septillions. One quintillion would be written numerically as 1, 000,000,000,000,000,000. One septillion has 24 zeroes: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Those are mind-boggling numbers. And yet, each flake matters. I appreciated the ones that fell gently and beautifully just now as I took our dog Oliver for a walk.

To appreciate such big numbers, I decided to return to small ones and do another A, B, C . . . 1, 2, 3.

AIR to BREATHE is vital to each of us 8 billion humans, and so we must CARE for our ONE planet. Each of us can, and really must, do our part. One in 8 billion, we each make a difference. TWO things I can do today are conserving water with a shorter shower and keeping our home’s heat on a lower setting to conserve energy. I can continue to apply these THREE words: Reduce, reuse, recycle.

And for good measure, I added ONE pause, to take in what I could hear with my TWO ears, and these THREE things made the list: silence, the wonder of an airplane flying overhead, and the slight sound of snowflakes hitting my jacket.

Our world is an amazing and awe-inspiring home to 8 billion people. I am so grateful to be one of them.