When I was a teenager, I had all these ideas about how I wanted to do some good in the world, and the thing I found most frustrating was how adults kept shooting down my ideas, or at least dampening my enthusiasm. “The world doesn’t work that way,” they would say, or “You can’t save the world, so why waste your time?”
My parents, and people like them, razzed me for being a bleeding heart. They acted like caring made me some kind of simpleton.
They still do. But I’ve realized that a lot of people who feel that way are really just overwhelmed by how much there is to do – and who isn’t?
The difference now, halfway through my life, is that I know I can make a small difference. I can’t save the world, or even a community, by myself – none of us can – but I can make choices to help. Some of it’s obvious, like reducing and recycling and buying fair trade and walking instead of driving. Some of it’s time-consuming, like volunteering with vulnerable groups to build their capacity.
Some of the important things take no effort at all, just awareness – like treating everyone you encounter with respect and generosity, even street people and service staff, telephone solicitors and ex-lovers.
Sometimes you have great plans, and then you get sidetracked by life. That’s okay – there are times when looking after you is exactly the thing you have to do. But it’s not okay to get discouraged by what other people say, or to be afraid to try.
You’ve probably heard it a million times: it’s the things in life you don’t do that you’ll regret. It’s so true.
These days, when my mother tries to dissuade me by saying, “You know, the world just isn’t a fair place.” I say, “True. But shouldn’t we be trying to make it a little more fair?”
