The real power here lies in reversing our usual anxiety about insignificance—Rumi isn't offering false comfort by saying you matter *despite* being small, but rather suggesting that the boundary between self and whole is an illusion we've drawn. When you sit with a difficult person in your life and suddenly understand their pain because you've felt something similar, you're experiencing this directly: the universal human experience expressing itself through your particular circumstances. It's less about inflating your ego and more about recognizing that whatever struggle or joy moves through you connects you to something far larger than your individual biography.