If the world is drowning, and all your work amounts to a millimetre off the water level of one city, what good have you done? A millimetre might make the difference between a submerged nostril, and not. The difference between the water flooding a building's walls, and it not. Nobody can determine the absolute level of badness in the world, but we can make local, relative changes to it. All big things are made of small things.
You can never know whether you have helped anyone. That does not mean you haven't.
Because you helped somebody.
If the world is drowning, and all your work amounts to a millimetre off the water level of one city, what good have you done? A millimetre might make the difference between a submerged nostril, and not. The difference between the water flooding a building's walls, and it not. Nobody can determine the absolute level of badness in the world, but we can make local, relative changes to it. All big things are made of small things.
You can never know whether you have helped anyone. That does not mean you haven't.