When You Were Small

YOU ARE SPECIAL You are a very special person. Even though there are billions of other people in the world, none of them is exactly like you. You may not know it, but you are big now. Before, you were smaller – much smaller. But even though you are special, you are a human being and you have a lot in common with other people. For instance, humans have senses so that they can know what is around them: Sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. It may surprise you, but other animals have senses that are different than ours – for instance, some can see things in the dark (like snakes), hear things in ranges that people can’t (like bats), and smell a lot of things better (like dogs). But because we are all human, we use the information that we obtain about what is around us to think about things in similar ways, and we do it differently than other animals – like dogs, cats, horses, birds, lions, bears, and fish. So, because of those differences, animals think about their surroundings in different ways than humans, and they have different experiences about what is around them than people do. But even though people have lots of similarities, they all have differences too – which makes everyone unique! IN THE BEGINNING At one time, you didn’t look anything like the way you do now. What happened to you since then is easy to explain. You are here because of your mother and your father. They decided to bring you into their lives by creating a single living cell that was a combination of two cells – one from each of them. The single cell that you started out as was very small – so small that you needed a microscope to see it. That single cell divided into more and more cells, and those new cells collected together in special ways to make you develop into the person you are now. It is amazing that you could have been so small and grown up into the person you are now from that! What kinds of things make you a unique person? Some of them are easy to see: Like your face, your eyes and ears, your head and neck, and your hands and feet. But there are also a lot of other things that you can’t see – like your heart and brain, stomach and liver, lungs and kidneys, and many other organs. All of those are inside you, which means that they are beneath your skin – and they are parts that everyone needs to keep them alive and healthy. So, how did all this happen? First, the cells that your parents joined together to start you off on your journey contained a unique combination of instructions – packaged in genes – so that the single cell they created could divide and develop into the many different types of tissues and organs that make you up now. That process unfolded in a sequence that is called development, and it takes time – months to years! All of those changes in you began when your mother was pregnant and you were inside your mother’s womb. That’s when all your major features developed – the things that set you off to make you into the person you are now! In addition to developing according to the instructions provided in your genes, there were many other things about your mother, her surroundings, and her pregnancy that were special, and those helped influence the way you evolved. For instance, you became a girl or a boy depending on what the instructions in your genes told your developing cells to turn into and what chemicals to make – which is part of a natural process called differentiation. Then, you left your mother’s womb to be born into the world. Where we are all now – on the surface of the Earth – is a very special place because it provides everything people need to grow and to thrive. You – like everyone else – are here for a reason! You have a mission in this place, which is something that only you can accomplish! What is a mission? It is something that you are meant to accomplish while you are here on Earth. But what is it? That is a great mystery that many people have thought about for a long time. Even though you can ask, nobody can tell you exactly what it is – only you can find out! YOU ARE GROWING As time passes, everything changes – including you. Ever since you were born you have continued to grow and to learn. Early on, you learned how to recognize and interact with things in your surroundings and how to influence them. For instance, if you touched a mobile above your crib when you were a baby, you would learn that you could make it move (sometimes even to the point of breaking it!). Those experiences taught you how to make changes to the things in your surroundings by taking actions. Even though people have a certain number and type of genes that make them human, they are not all identical – there are still a lot of differences among them. The experiences people have also help to shape the way that they think, learn, gain knowledge, and develop understandings about both themselves and their surroundings – which is the environment where they live. Everyone has experiences that begin very early in their development, and they are all different. Those experiences interact with the ways that their genes direct them to evolve to make them into the people they become. So, everyone in the world is different – and they all have unique interests, abilities, and talents that allow them to accomplish different things and contribute to the changing world in different ways. Because people are all individuals with different perspectives and abilities, they also have different needs and wants. That is what creates diversity among people, which is a wonderful thing!