Have you ever sat on a train and wondered what people were thinking? How many people were trying to resolve a heartbreak? How many people were lonely? How many people needed help making it through the day? I think about these things everytime the train starts and I see a guy across from me with his head lowered, his headphones blaring, and a complexion that looks like he hasn’t slept for days. I always wonder what he’s thinking, what he’s experiencing; and after a while, he looks up, our eyes meet, and I look away.
And that becomes my biggest regret of the day.
I always have big thoughts when it comes to changing the world. In my mind, I am the mediator between Israel and Palestine, the peacemaker between China and Japan, and the one who comes up with a compromise between North Korea and the rest of the world. In my mind, history is irrelevant, and there is no bitterness that cannot be resolved.
On a smaller scale, I am the reason that there’s a cure for breast cancer, the reason for why there are no more starving children, and the one who makes the poverty line completely indistinguishable.
And in the last 3 minutes, with all the mediating and the curing, I am exhausted. I have done so much, but nothing at all.
But what would happen if I took all the time and energy I gave to thinking about world peace and cancer, and turned it towards something more immediate—something I could do now? What if you could make a difference in the world at this very second, even as you’re reading this post? What if you could smile at every stranger? Offer a helping hand?
Why can’t you?
I’ve always thought that the phrase “making a difference” was a little over-used. You see it at every fundraiser, every nonprofit organization, every school, and we use it so often that it makes me wonder if anyone actually knows what it means, or how to go about it.
For me, a person who makes a difference in my life is the person who smiles at me as I walk by, the person who tells me what I’m wearing that day looks nice, or the person who picks up my orange when the grocery bag breaks and all the food is scattered all over the floor. She’s the girl who has just left the building, but sees me walking in with a handful of books and goes back specifically to hold open the door. He’s the guy who sees me tearing up at a coffee shop and tries to cheer me up by giving me a penny and telling me that it’ll bring me luck. And they’re the people who read my blog and send me emails and comments about how my enthusiasm has helped them get through the day.
It constantly amazes me how easy it is to make a difference, how, without much effort, you can make someone’s life that much better. A lady once told me that I couldn’t change the world because I hadn’t survived anything, and didn’t have any experiences to share. Back then, I didn’t have a response because I didn’t know very much, but if she said to that to me today, I would have responded with, “well, I might not be able to the change the world today or tomorrow, but you’ve got to start to somewhere”.
I used to tap my feet to the rhythm of “It’s a Small World”.
Maybe I’ll start doing that again.
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