World Population

In my environmental biology class, we are discussing world population and it's affects on the environment.  First of all, the are over 6 billion people in the world.  When I really stop and think about just how many people that is, I feel extremely insignificant.  It's kind of depressing to think that there are so many other people in this world and I am such a small part of it I probably don't even matter.  I hope that even though there are so many in our world, I can still make a large impact.  I don't necessarily want to be famous or anything like that, I guess I just don't want to be a nobody.  I'd like to be someone that is respected and important and I'd like to play a part in our world that makes me feel that way.  But then I think that it is probably going to be impossible, because really, I am not the smartest person by any means and there are a lot of other people with a lot more drive than I have.  I wonder if I'll ever reach a point where I feel satisfied and like I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing.  Because, really, how is anyone even supposed to know what they should be doing?  I guess I just want my life to have a point...
Then I think about the future and how much it is going to suck for the people that live here after I'm gone.  It's kind of unfair to them to have to deal with all these problems we've created, but I guess that's just how life works.  The future looks kind of dim because we are destroying everything that we have.  There's too many people and it's hard to know how much longer our planet can sustain them.  We did an activity that measured how many planet Earths we would need if everyone lived the exact same lifestyle as I do.  My number of planets was 5.9.  I kind of felt embarrassed because that's a huge number.  I guess I'm living beyond my means and could cut back on how much I waste and how I use my resources.  It's depressing to think that I am adding to the problem and making things harder on our planet.  But, it's nearly impossible to come up with a solution for these problems.  I can do my little part and cut back and be aware of what I'm doing in my life that's going to affect the future of our planet, but what more can I really do?  The way I've been raised has been comfortable, and I enjoy a lot of the privileges that I have as an American, and all of that would be so hard to give up.   I'm not trying to be pessimistic, I just don't know any other way to look at it.  I mean, humans have pretty much started to destroy the one place we have to live and we just keep doing so because our lifestyles demand it. 

Sorry to be so depressing.  I just even feel guilty using the electricity to run this laptop....