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Be the Minimal Change This World Needs.
You can’t do it all by yourself. But you can make a difference moment by moment.
Change constantly affects me, but try as I may, I cannot affect change. I can’t erase childhood hunger, poverty, violent crime, or fix the climate crisis. I can’t even convince some of you that any of these things exist if you don’t see them first and experience them for yourself. So I have stopped trying.
What I am doing instead is the bare minimum required each day to make the stretch of clay that unwinds before me a bit more clutter-free. I pick up trash and put it in a bin. I hold the door for a stranger at the stop-n-shop. I smile at the ones who look lost and forgotten. I’m not doing anything, really.
I can’t make anyone else pick up trash by setting the example. I no longer wish that everyone would pick up their trash. I don’t feel angst towards the unknown litterbugs when I snatch a loose napkin from the summer breeze. I don’t know those people. They don’t owe me anything.
Doing the bare minimum of most anything will accrue great results over time. Look at the cigarette butts in the gutters of your town. Look at the plastic bags hanging from the trees along your highway. Each one arrived on its own. Now there are so many it’s hard to imagine ever picking up…
