I Matter. You Matter. We Matter.

Amy Bloom, an American writer and psychotherapist, once remarked, "You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful."

How I came to like that remark by Amy Bloom! It inspires me to love and accept myself in spite of all my flaws.

We are all flawed, in one way or another. But I don't think all people have a beautiful soul. Some are just crass, the kind I now avoid associating with.

One flawed public figure who has a beautiful soul is Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States. I am saying so because on reading his endearing memoir, I came to know him as a leader with a genuine fondness for people.

It is well known that Bill Clinton had extramarital affairs with several women. He even had the audacity to engage in sexual escapades with a young White House intern named Monica Lewinsky when he was U.S. President in the '90s.

After news broke out about his affair with Lewinsky, he denied it. In one interview with the media, he asserted, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!"

When it was eventually revealed that Bill Clinton had indeed had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, some haters crawled out of the woodwork and descended on him with criticism. They accused him of being a cheat and a fraud.

Bill Clinton confessed in his memoir that he was tempted to have an affair with Lewinsky. And when the scandal broke out, he lied about it to protect his name from being tarnished. Both of those two accounts of his story sound true and reasonable to me.

Personally, I have entertained many lustful thoughts in my mind. And I am sure if I had the opportunities to act out those thoughts, I would have committed more grievous sins than Bill Clinton. That's why I find it unwise to accuse Bill Clinton of being a cheat and a fraud for yielding to temptations.

Had I had the contacts of Bill Clinton back in the '90s when haters were descending on him with criticism, I would have sent him a message, saying "Bill, you are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful."

As for me, I think I also have a beautiful soul despite all the mistakes I have made in the past. I have often been a humble, loving and forgiving person, sometimes even reaching out to my haters.

But you know what? Even though I have been a good person, some characters have painted me as a bad person, perhaps due to their jealousy or as a way of escaping their own insecurities. Yet my only main weaknesses have been timidity and confusion.

Having grown up as a timid and confused teenager, I came to believe that I deserved to be rebuked, corrected and even punished. I would therefore accept everybody's advice without evaluating the character and intelligence of the person giving me advice.

Come to think of it, I was wrong to believe that I deserved to be rebuked, corrected and even punished. Actually, what I deserve is to be treated with respect. No one has a right to condemn me since we are all flawed.

Bill Gates, another role model of mine, is richer and more famous than me. But that doesn't mean he is more important than me. I am just as valuable as him. There are things I can do better than him.

In his memoir, Bill Clinton summarized that some of the facts he learnt from his undergraduate years at Georgetown University are that "man is basically good; that there is truth, but no finite mortal has it; that we can get closer to the truth only by working together; and that through faith and good works, we can have a better life in this world and a reward in the next."

The fact that "there is truth but no finite mortal has it" is what leads me to believe that no fellow human being has a right to dictate to me how I ought to live my life. I matter. So do my ideas and viewpoints. You too, my beloved reader, matter.

In fact, we all matter. And what we do matters. The work of a farmer who grows tomatoes is just as important as the work of a minter who prints paper money. The work of a kindergarten teacher who teaches kids how to read and write is just as important as the work of a president who governs a nation. We all matter.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story about how we all matter, you might also enjoy another one titled "You Matter" which I wrote a couple of years ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.