What does “being part of something bigger” mean to you?

Great question. I am a single person here on fluther is an example.
We are all part of something bigger than ourselves, the universe, and each community we draw from. We often forget this. Many times we stop looking beyond our own body, opinion, experience, well-being, etc.

Definition: to participate in something that is focused on the well-being of something other than oneself (not self-focused), often through shared work with others.

Personal meaning: to recognize that, though I am tiny and only temporarily on this earth, I can take action toward outcomes that go beyond my own life, needs, comforts, desires, gains and losses.

Being a cog in a collective machine that pursues goals to great for an individual to accomplish.
Like being in a cult that works towards being whisked away by aliens.
Being part of an army that flattens entire countries and rapes and pillages what is left.
Being part of a global religion that works to subjugate entire continents in order to funnel little boys into the greasy arms of priests.

@ragingloli So, for you is being part of something greater a positive for your feeling of well being?

My family doesn’t use this expression at all, so I didn’t have context for it. For me, religious people always seemed to be the ones who used it.

Being part of a “good” cause despite the potential of said cause to not satisfy you and force you into a compromise.

So the world could go on existing with hopes that most if not all of the people would be happy enough not to kill others who disagree with their beliefs, wants, desires.

That…is something bigger than me that I am a part of.

@JLeslie
“being part of something greater” always has the unmistakeble taste of nefariousness. A surrender of autonomy. A rejection of individual responsibility. A justification for vile acts. A pressure applied to you to do the same.

It means exactly what it says: that you are part of something that is bigger and more important than yourself. I could be the universe and God, but it could also be a project at work. It could be part of a cause. It could be a soldier on the battlefield trying to complete a mission that is important for the success of the battle/war. I always looked at the term “bigger” as meaning “bigger picture”, not necessarily bigger size (as in one of a group).

@seawulf575 I’m wondering if people who aren’t Christian commonly use it. I don’t know if maybe it is not part of my vernacular because I’m Jewish or it’s cultural regarding where my family is originally from or the region in the US. Seeing @ragingloli’s answer as a rejection of conformity and blind following amongst a group was interesting to me, and why maybe I never heard it used.

The family of man. I was once told that I needed to find an overarching purpose for my life. I don’t see it as necessarily related to religion or being Christian or Jewish. To me it’s a metaphor – kind of like the circle of life.

@janbb Did you hear it growing up in NY/NJ in your Jewish home or in your community? Or, was that a more recent explanation given to you?

@JLeslie It’s not a phrase I remember hearing but again, I don’t associate it with religion when I hear it. You seem much more concerned with what is Jewish and what is Christian than I am. I didn’t particularly need an explanation of it, to me it’s self-explanatory.

@janbb Not concerned at all, just curious and interested. The differences in the use of language interests me,

I thought you were a language person yourself.

Would you use “concern” regarding the differences between the King’s English and American English?

I lived in the bible belt and started to understand how they used certain expressions and their feelings and intentions behind the terminology. I also lived in the Midwest and absorbed some of their jargon.

It could mean my family who will live on after I am gone.

It could mean pride in my country.

It could mean being a small component in the grand human experiment to make the world a better place but which shows unmistakeable signs of achieving the opposite.

But what could be bigger than the individual man or woman who creates the entire universe in his or her mind and who, alone of created things, feels joy and sorrow.

@JLeslie I’ve actually never heard it used for religion. I can see how it might apply, but I’ve heard it mainly with big projects and military.

@seawulf575 Yeah, that might have been a completely wrong assumption on my part.

@JLeslie You’re right. Just interesting.

Without going into details I have had several profound moments of realization that what I’m doing really matters, to a lot of people. Like life and death. It’s humbling, to say the least. Also, incredibly stressful.

That is why I Fluther.