Hey, We Matter
I haven’t written a blog post in a few months. I thought I had lost the desire to do so, but it was more than that. I forgot about myself and what brings me joy.
My dad had a stroke in June, and life changed for him and all of us. He’s getting better day by day, but there’s still a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. It’s no wonder my routine got disrupted. I was glad to notice how I was feeling, but I still wasn’t producing work like I used to.
That’s when the idea that we matter came to me.
Do we know how much our lives matter? I never really thought about how “I matter” to myself. I didn’t learn it or embrace it.
But now, frustrated with procrastinating, I wanted to understand why. Through that deliberation, I realized I needed to know I matter. It shifted my thinking, and it could do the same for you.
Here’s Why We Matter
Knowing that we matter helps us make better choices that align with who we are.
Many of us are too hard on ourselves. We’re doing the best we can with what we know and what we’ve experienced. Yet we were told that what should be good enough wasn’t good enough, and that someone or something else mattered more than we do. That’s when we’re people pleasers, self-effacing, hiding from ourselves because we don’t think we’re worthy of the life we want. Been there, done that.
When we keep doing things that don’t require much effort, our lives mirror what we put into them. It’s easier to be a people pleaser than to be assertive. It’s easier to shun attention or praise than to do what makes you stand out. And it’s easier to pretend everything is fine than to face what hurts and deal with it.
If you’re happy and have peace of mind, that, to me, is the pinnacle of life. I think we all aspire to be happy and have peace of mind. I know I do.
Here’s How To Get It
Being happy is about never needing outside validation for anything. Peace of mind comes when we fully trust ourselves to make the right decisions.
Living our best life comes down to the choices we make. Knowing we matter is the first step to making the right choices.
Think about the decisions you’ve made and how they made you feel.
If we base our decisions on what someone else wants, our minds can trick us into believing it’s easier and better to go along, but eventually we’ll resent it. That’s when we complain to others about something that doesn’t align with our happiness and peace, and we need outside validation to tell us we made the right choice. If it were the right decision, we wouldn’t need to complain.
I don’t know about you, but I want to be happy, and I’m taking steps to get there by continually working on myself. Doing the hard stuff (like being introspective, aware, listening to our gut, and changing the conditioning in our lives) will help us live more easily.
Living more easily means reaching a level in life where we matter more than anything else and live the life we’ve wanted all along.
To those folks living their dream and whose lives look effortless, I applaud you. For those who aren’t there yet but are doing their best to make everything look good on the outside (even if the inside is a jumbled mess), keep going. The inside will catch up to the outside if you do the necessary work. We can have all sorts of good things on the outside, like a great family, wonderful kids, a big job, a beautiful house, etc., but at the end of the day, we have to answer to ourselves.
You and I matter enough that we’re worth the effort.
The Quick Fix
The easiest way to get aboard the “I matter” train is to tell yourself you do matter. You matter when you want to say no. You matter when you want to do something special for yourself. You matter when you need a break, and you listen to your body. Get the picture. Pay more attention to this. You’d be surprised how much you choose something based on someone else’s reaction.
Take tiny steps you wouldn’t normally take and do them. Face your fear. Let go of the messages that told you you can’t. Engage in activities that make you feel joy. Do what matters to you before your emotions talk you out of it.
Long Term Results
Each action that helps us to feel joy is a building block to a really wonderful life. The more you think you can do something, the more you will do it. Then, when you take a chance on something you really want, your mind believes you can do it without failing.
The long-term results of believing in yourself and knowing you matter are happiness, calm, and confidence. People will respond with more respect to the updated version of you because you know what you want and won’t let anyone get you off track. We feel more in control of our lives when we believe we matter. Guilt, frustration, anger, and resentment no longer affect us. Every interaction becomes intentional, and what we say and do reflects our authentic self-worth and self-esteem. Life is pretty sweet.
To Sum Up
We matter—all of us. Folks who feel like life cheated them learned that somewhere from someone who made them think they had to meet certain conditions in order to feel worthy of being enough. Until we realize that the influences we had growing up weren’t perfect people who knew it all, but human beings doing the best they could with what they had learned, we’ll keep suffering.
We have an opportunity to change that.
Be more intentional and present. Pay closer attention to how you treat people, and for God’s sake, apologize when you hurt someone. That can make a world of difference to someone who feels they are not good enough. Let’s break the cycle. Let’s show one another respect and that all of our feelings matter because, hey, we matter.
Thank you for reading this. I write these blog posts to share the wisdom I’ve gained from going through the tough stuff. I want to bring peace to others’ hearts. How does this resonate with you? Do you ever think about what I’m writing here?
To us mattering,
Francesca 
Written by a human for humans.
© 2026 FrancescaME | All rights reserved.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
If not noted otherwise, photos taken by Francesca M.E.
*DISCLAIMER: FrancescaME is not a therapist or doctor, and any information shared is from personal experience, learning, and research.
If you’re suffering, please consult a mental health therapist for help. Just as our bodies need to see a doctor when we’re not well, our minds need care, too.
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