The phrase that comes to mind with his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, is “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. What does BE the change you wish to see in the world look like and feel like? It is a phrase I have read and heard often and then what? How easy is it to go to events and listen to all sorts of superb speakers and then come home and actually DO nothing, put nothing into action. You don’t always need to rip up your entire life and change Everything, sometimes the simplest little changes make profound differences.
The biggest Change I have noticed in my life has been since I started a practice of daily meditation. I have been doing a particular meditation practice for 6 years and now practice daily. If I can ever recommend anything to anyone it would be – introduce some form of meditation and or mindfulness into your daily routine.
However, I have never been one to just sit around and just meditate and send beautiful healing. I add in action.
Since I was a teenager I have been an activist in various guises. I have been on marches and pickets and signed petitions and written letters and all of that. I have been out on strike many times and the last strike was over pay conditions in solidarity with colleagues who have to resort to using food banks to get by. I used to be in just about every pressure group I could find and especially all the environmental NGO’s. I was so incredibly passionate that somehow we really Could change the world. I read report after report about the doom and gloom in the world and saw how the challenges and horrors were so incredibly massive. I found I couldn’t turn a blind eye from the horrors, I had to know what was going on. I have learnt not to get attached to what is happening but I still witness.
But I have Never given up hope. Throughout all the destruction and violence I still am a Massive optimist.
I have an awareness of the speed of extinction of biodiversity, the destruction of the great rainforests, the shrinking of the ice, level of pollution in our oceans…. I have an awareness of the levels of child labour, exploitation, domestic abuse, trafficking, homelessness, poverty, raging civil wars and the current challenges faced by those fleeing their homelands….
But I STILL see the Beauty in this world. I see resilience everywhere, I see kindness and I see hope. I see tiny plants that push and struggle and Burst through the concrete of our streets with their vivid green glory and I see this replicated in the hearts of people that are bursting open and blossoming.
On one level, it sometimes looks like How could I Ever affect change, what on earth can 1 tiny insignificant person do?! It’s easy to be overwhelmed with All that is presented to us. It’s easy to give up before we begin. But I Never give up.
This is a favourite story:
Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)
I have in the past beaten myself up because I thought I had to be like other people to effect change, that I had to be a particular therapist or teacher or some fancy speaker or or or…. Who knows or cares if that will ever be my path.
Keep it Super Simple, I am Profoundly aware that the magic of this life is in the mundane, the ordinary, the everyday, the small random acts of kindness. You never need do anything particularly flash, it’s about showing up moment to moment and doing whatever you can the only way you can.
You might never know the effect you have simply by smiling at a stranger in the street.