The world is pretty crazy. Humans are capable of adapting to the craziest of circumstances. It doesn't necessarily mean we're emotionally healthy, or mentally healthy, but we are survivors. Time and existences marches on and on, and sometimes it's hard to create the changes we want to see in the world.
For the longest time, I had grandiose ideas of the changes I could facilitate. I could cure cancer, if only I got the education and research lab that I would need. I could cure lots of other things too, I could write the next greatest novel that would move the world en masse to rethink how we live. I would be President, and fix so many of the broken laws and I'd solve world hunger as well. A little part of me still thinks I can do all that with enough time and resources. Maybe I could. Life doesn't usually go the way we think it will, and the hardest lesson I've only begun to learn is that it's okay. It's okay if those huge visions never happen. It's okay if I can't do any of those things. It's okay to try, and it's okay to fail. The things I wanted to do to change the world are a lot for one person to do. We have treatments that are crazy effective at getting rid of cancer cells, but it takes years for those to be "tested" and instead of treating new cases immediately with the most effective, and least harmful, method we've found...we continue to treat it in the same old way in most cases. If I had produced a cure for cancer and it got lost in the shuffle of weird paperwork, FDA approvals, and then balked at because it would quickly fix the problem and "rob" the health system of tons of money in repeat radiation treatments that drag on for years...I would have lost my cool. It would have been a whole new level of frustration and disappointment, knowing people weren't getting the life-saving treatments I had a solution for.
What I overlooked, and what I'm now learning might be the most important thing any of us does, is the power of the tiny things. Everything we do causes a ripple effect that, most of the time, we never get to see. Each time we treat someone with care and respect, that energy goes out in to the universe. Each person it effects chooses whether or not to perpetuate that energy by passing it on to others. Grandiose gestures certainly do have the potential to fix large problems for quite a few people. With all the political and governmental red-tape though, it's rarely the solution that will end up being used as intended. We, as individuals, have more freedom and ability to meet people where their needs are. If you know how to crochet, knit or sew and you have some leftover yarn or fabric you might be able to make someone a scarf, hat, mittens, tote, socks. I can almost guarantee you will find someone who could use those things. Those are everyday things for most of us, things we can't imagine being without. It's easy to overlook them as "unimportant" when staring at the problem of homelessness, hunger, and devastating natural disasters. We can't always fix the big things, and certainly not quickly, but sometimes we can improve the lives of those around us just by our existence and how we choose to treat and help people.
Adulting is frustrating. The way our world works means we have to spend so much of our time worrying about, and working for, money. Much of the time our focus is on money, not on the quality of our lives or on what truly matters the most to us. The moments we have for free time are spent tackling the increasingly disturbing news stories or trying to do housework, sometimes homework (yes...still), and balancing family and friend relationships with our work. We have less time, usually, to plot our grandiose schemes of changing the world for the better. Yet, I think for many adults that desire still exists. It just feels like trying to guide a wooly mammoth that wants to go in the opposite direction. It's difficult to get visible change going, it takes a lot of people and time. But we can do little things, and the difference those little things can make to another person can be huge. The more little changes happen, the more they add up and before we know it, we've created large change where people need it most. Remember when the postal workers picked up food to feed people who wouldn't be able to afford a nice Thanksgiving and Christmas, or holiday dinner? Maybe you only have one can you can spare, and that's okay. Someone else was able to eat that day, because of that can of food. Lots of people doing little things, can make just as much change as one person doing a grandiose thing...sometimes more.
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