The Chain of Life: How Many People It Took for You to Exist

🌙 A Note from Honey

This series isn’t coming to you polished or professional—it’s me learning out loud, in real time. Expect things to shift, grow, and evolve as I do. Because life isn’t about having it all figured out—it’s about staying curious, asking questions, and letting wonder change you.

So come along with me—winging it, growing as I go, and hopefully inspiring you to do the same. 💛

Sometimes I stop and think about the chain of life it took for me to be here—the millions of couples across centuries who had to find each other, share a moment of love or intimacy, and pass the thread forward. It is humbling, almost impossible to grasp.

And it makes me realize: even love that doesn’t create children leaves a legacy. A smile, a partnership, a joyful couple holding hands on a sidewalk—those things ripple out in ways we don’t even see. Love, in all its forms, helps shape the world. And knowing that makes life, and every connection we make, feel all the more precious.

Sometimes I stop and marvel at this one astonishing fact: for me to exist, countless lives had to intertwine just so. Every ancestor of mine—from long-ago villagers in England or Scotland, to farmers in Ireland, to families in Denmark or the Netherlands—had to meet, fall in love (or at least come together), and carry the thread of life forward at exactly the right time.

When you trace it back:

• I have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, and the number doubles with each generation.

• By just 30 generations ago (about 700–800 years), that’s over a billion ancestral “slots” filled.

Of course, because of overlapping family lines, not every slot is unique—but still, the sheer number of people it took to weave together the DNA that makes me “me” is staggering.

That is wild when you think of it this way. By about 30 generations back (roughly 700–800 years), there are over a billion ancestral slots in that generation alone—and more than two billion slots if you total all generations up to that point. Thanks to pedigree collapse, many of those slots repeat—but the sheer scale is still staggering.

🌍 The vastness of humanity

Anthropologists estimate that about 117 billion humans have ever lived. Today, about 8 billion of us are alive right now, which means almost 7% of all humans who have ever existed are alive today.

Each of those people—whether they lived long ago or are alive right now—was part of this web of humanity, passing life and stories forward. The fact that their lives converged to bring me here makes me grateful beyond words.

❤️ The role of love (with or without children)

When we talk about ancestry, we often think only of bloodlines. But love itself has a legacy, whether or not children are born from it.

Even if a couple does not create life together—whether because of age, choice, or circumstance—their love still ripples through the generations. How? By:

• Shaping family values: Children and grandchildren watch how love is expressed, how respect is shown, and how joy is shared.

• Influencing choices: Witnessing true partnership helps guide younger generations in choosing their own partners and building their own families.

• Extending well-being: Love later in life brings happiness, stability, and longevity, which in turn creates a more positive presence in the lives of others.

And here’s something I believe with my whole heart: sometimes love changes the world in ways we don’t even see. There are couples you pass on the street who radiate. You know the ones—perfect strangers stop them just to say how cute they are, because the joy between them is undeniable. They laugh together, hold hands, and make even the simplest errands look like fun. Couples like that are quietly leaving seeds in the hearts of everyone who sees them. A child walking by may carry that memory as a vision of what to hope for someday. A young adult may set their standards a little higher. Even those of us farther along in life may feel renewed hope.

In truth, a great couple can change the world simply by walking down the street hand in hand with a smile. Sometimes we change the world with nothing more than our energy. And if a loving, happy, meant-for-each-other older couple doesn’t inspire some life goals, I don’t know what does.

🌌 A humbling perspective

When I think about the billions of lives before me, and the intricate, delicate web that had to exist for me to be here, it humbles me. My childhood wasn’t perfect—whose is?—but knowing what it took for me to even have the chance to live shifts my perspective. It makes resentment fade and gratitude take its place.

Life is precious, short, and fragile. And yet, within this small window of time, I get to love, laugh, and contribute something meaningful.

✨ A reminder

We are each the product of thousands of lifetimes and billions of choices, and yet, we also get to be creators of legacy—not only through children, but through love, kindness, purpose, and joy.

So whether your love story includes children or not, whether it happens in your 20s or your 70s, it matters. It matters for you, it matters for those who see you, and it matters for the unseen threads of life that stretch far into the future.

And that, to me, is breathtaking.

💛 Honey