The Power of Simple Acts

I write this in mid November 2020 so COVID is still around we are in the aftermath of the election. It can be scary and overwhelming, which makes it easy to allow yourself to be swept up in a vortex of fear, anger, and anxiety. There is a lot of noise in social media about who is evil and who is not simply based on if someone disagrees with your political and cultural philosophies and quite frankly it makes me sad and scared for our nation because it seems that social media is not doing anything to promote unity and those so called influences as paying lip service to unity.

So the question again is what can I do? I am reminded of the phrase that has been used in so many different contexts.

Think globally, act locally.

The way I am trying to use that phase for me to try to help those that I can with the knowledge that my act will be paid forward in someway even if I don't see it. 

There are a lot of people out there that are hurting and quite frankly I cannot help all of them. However, I can probably help someone. You can do some simple things that make a big difference to someone. If you don’t believe me then ask yourself why so many of us love those ‘pay it forward’ stories or the ‘small or random act of kindness’ stories capture our attention and warm our hearts.

The truth is we often don’t know what is going on most people’s lives and yet other people affect us on a daily basis. The affect can be good or bad, big or small, but they do affect us. Think about a time that you feel someone cut inline at the store or cut you off while driving? You probably get frustrated and angry and then potentially so something in a similar vein and sets another person off and there are ripples of anger and frustration.

If we can create ripples of anger and frustration we can also create ripples of love and understanding. We know we can because of those ‘pay it forward’ and ‘small acts of kindness’ stories often prompt many do do the same. There are many ways to create these positive ripples we just have to train ourselves to not only do them but to believe in them.

Believing them I think is going to be the hardest part because we don’t often get to see the positive affect we have based on these small things. And this is where faith comes in, we have to have faith that what we do will help someone even if we don’t know how, we have to have faith that God is working through us in some small way for a huge reason.

One thing that I have used a lot over the course of the past year and half is a version of Hanlon’s razor that I apply to the situation at hand. If you are wondering what Hanlon’s razor is it is:

"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”

And how I employ that philosophy depends on the situation. For example when someone cuts me off in traffic, I obviously don’t know why they are in such a hurry so rather than curse them an assume they think they are better than everyone else I try to think of a different reason that they cut me off. 

Perhaps they are rushing to the hospital to see a loved one, maybe they were fired and are angry and heading home, there are so many reasons for what they did and they are not personally out to get me, so I do my best to be charitable and attribute that poor decision to a momentary frustration rather than thinking poorly of that person as a whole. 

I can totally relate to an act made in frustration and it not being who I am as a person. I know I have done similar things when I was angry or frustrated, I had nothing against the person I cut off in traffic but I was in my own bubble, and while my decision was poor it was not indicative of who I was. 

I cannot find a down side to brushing off these small slights and working to stop the ripple of negativity, but I can find the upside, which is stopping stopping the ripple of negativity.

Just between you and me, I am not perfect in this application, but I am trying and really any change toward the better is good. And it is certainly easier to practice this now than it was when I first started but it will be something that I will always have to work on.

There are some simple ways to help create ripples of positivity and goodness, and you probably do some of them already even if it is only sporadically. Some of these things cost you nothing other than time, and others can cost you time and money but should be considered time and money well spent.

• Pay someone a compliment

• Hold your tongue when someone does something you don’t like but isn’t dangerous or illegal

• Send a happy note via snail mail just because

• Take advantage of BOGO or Buy One Get One 50% off sales and donate the free or 50% off item to your local food pantry

• Donate clothing to those in need rather than selling it at a garage sale or online marketplace

• Volunteer your time with a civic or religious organization that supports a cause that is close to your heart

• Take advantage of things like Amazon’s smile program to benefit a charity, I am sure that there are other types of programs like that so whatever it is you find do it.

• Apply a version of Hanlon’s razor to difficult interactions that you don’t understand

 If this still seems overwhelming I get it.  But if it helps think of this quote as it can apply to so many things in our lives.

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmadic Hercules.   ~ Anthony Trollope