Refusing to Do Nothing

I am tired. Even while isolating, we’re out hiking trails, kayaking, gardening, biking and generally using up all of the energy we’ve stored over the long winter and spring. Add to it the sun which shows it’s first light at 4:45 am and which keeps its last light until nearly 10 pm, and we are doing whatever the opposite of hibernating is.

There are just so many options available now that the weather is nice; it can be hard to choose which thing to do each day. Do you ever feel that way about causes? Like there are so many amazing things to care about, whether it be endangered species, homelessness, child abuse prevention, prison reform, or any of the other 1.4 million charities in the United States alone. I get exhausted thinking about all the good work out there being done, all that good work that needs help, and my inability to do more.

Can I let you in on my own private conspiracy theory? I think that the feeling of helplessness in the face of so much need is there to keep us from taking action. Eh, I don’t know if it’s on purpose or calculated or anything, but the fact that most of us just freeze up in the face of how much suffering there is? I think that frozenness exists because if each of us took just a little bit of that giant puzzle, we could create some major changes.

So here’s what I propose. Let’s each take one piece of this puzzle and work on it. Those of you who are up to our necks in diapers and daycare or crunch time work and overdue deadlines, you guys can take the edges and the corner pieces. Those of us who maybe have more time on our hands than we used to, we’ll take those bright blue sky pieces that all look the same. Together, each piece will get taken. And that way, we don’t all have to move heaven and earth to change the world.

We just have to change the small part we’ve been given.