This is an excerpt from the last newsletter I sent out, back in December. (I’m not current doing newsletters.) The message is one I want to share again – a reminder that what you do matters and makes a difference… more than you know.
So often, in various ways, I’ve talked about how you make a difference, more than you realize, even in simply going about your day and in seemingly small ways.
Smiling at someone. Holding an elevator door long enough for someone to get in without having to wait for the next time. Sending a text to ask how things are going. Responding to a text, to let the other person know you heard, you care, you like being in touch. Giving someone four quarters in exchange for a dollar bill so they can get out of a parking garage.
These are a tiny, tiny fraction of examples – and they’re examples from my own life, small acts of kindness given to me during very stressful times at hospitals and surgery centers these past months.
And I can’t even begin to tell you how much small things like these helped me during those times, and how I’m so very grateful to everyone (many of them people I don’t know and will never see again) who helped in any small (or big) way or showed any small (or big) kindness. (And really, I don’t believe any kindness is too small – I believe all kindness counts, and I believe the world could benefit very much from more kindness.)
These kinds of things matter. What you do, how you go about your day, your acts of kindness, your words, your smile, your prayers, your thoughtfulness – it all matters, it all makes a difference.
And you never know when your small touch of kindness, or one sentence, or one smile, will be the thing that helps someone hold on a little longer, or will ease their fear or struggle even just for a while.
Of course, doing “bigger things” out in the world or with your work can make a difference and matter too. But so often these days, I think we hear so many messages of “going big” or “changing thousands of lives” that we can forget how even our ordinary days, even touching the life of one person, matters… and can matter more than we ever know.
So please remember that what you do, in your ordinary everyday life, does matter – and you create ripples in other lives you often never even know about.
You make a difference.
♥
Ginger Simpson White 