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The world will still go with or without me.This is always a difficult realisation to come to - yes, the world will go on regardless, and it's tough to live with the thought. It'll go on just fine without you, or me; but it's also going along pretty well without Thomas Edison, and George Washington, and Steve Jobs, and some day it'll go on without Elon Musk too. That's kind of the beauty of it - there's always a future to look forward to, because nothing is the be-all and end-all.
> I convinced my self for so long that whatever I was doing was going to be great and help lots of people, but it didn't.
And that's completely okay. Like, legitimately, 100% okay. No one says you have to help lots of people. There's an excellent quote that makes the rounds:
> You all have a little bit of 'I want to save the world' in you; that's why you're here ... I want you to know that it's okay if you only save one person, and it's okay if that person is you.
It's a dangerous line of thinking to realise that the world will go on regardless, and that nothing really matters. In fact, when I was 23 (currently 30) I remember a similar sort of malaise. What helped me personally get out of it was realising that even if nothing really mattered, I still had choice. I could still choose for things to matter - because there was nothing to tell me otherwise. You have the power to choose the things that are important to you. And you don't have to choose them for any reason - you can choose to get out of bed just to prove you can do it. Or you could choose to because you want to save puppies, or see the Pyramids.
My view, and what motivates me, is that work is not necessarily what defines me or what defines my successes; it's what my work enables me to do that motivates me. Sure, in some cases, my work enables me to directly help people as part of my job. But the money it pays me also enables me to help friends or family, or even strangers, in ways outside my work. I chose to do what I can to make the world a better place, and even if I only manage to do that for a small group of people, that's okay. Sure, I'll still try to change the world, and be an Elon Musk megastar, but I'm okay with just making a few lives better.
In fact, some of the greatest people I know are those who work regular, straightforward 9-to-5 jobs, and who choose their family to be the thing they value most. They are amazing parents, dedicated to doing everything they can to give their kids the best opportunities. They are great not because of their work achievements, but because of their personal achievements.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that there are many more people contributing to things like SpaceX, Tesla, Uber, etc, than just the people working there. There'd be no Tesla or Uber without the people who work through the night laying asphalt to make new roads and fill potholes. There'd be no SpaceX without the people who mine the aluminium they use to build their rockets, or the mechanics who service the boats that pull their landing barges.
For me, I still have days where I don't want to get out of bed. I lie there, thinking about staying in bed, and calling in sick to work - because if I stay in bed, the world will still go on without me. There's no real reason to get out of bed. I don't have to.
But, eventually I do get out of bed; not because I have to, but because I want to. Because I choose to.
Also, just worth noting - when Elon Musk was 23, it was 1994, and he was yet to found a company, and he didn't make all his money through SpaceX - he made it by making a payments platform.
Hope this helps.