Scale in perspective

A friend showed me a picture of the radius which radio waves have traveled to outside of earth in the past 70 years or so. It's a tiny dot in comparison to the size of the galaxy we live in, which the picture is of. He says that all our troubles, etc., are in that dot, and that we therefore don't matter. Drew sees his sphere of influence as tiny in the grand scheme of things, and he despairs.

This is the same despair created when we care too much about politics. We are too small to do anything big. Look at the greatest rulers in the past - all their accomplishments. This handful of world leaders and conquerors, all they've done, is hardly remembered or relevant. Genghis Khan may be the ancestor of millions of living people today, but he's still dead, and hardly any of his descendants know or care about their lineage. 

Our sphere of influence is as big as we are, and only extends further so much as we can influence others. Unless we get something out of the extension of our influence, there's no reason to try. What could I want that I could get through influencing others? A family, a salary, friends, etc. What could I want from a galaxy?