A Do-good Moment, A Lifetime Effect

I wrote a letter to the President when I was a little man-in-training--a letter that never left home. That undelivered letter called for peace, for cheaper gas prices--because the grown folks complained constantly about gas prices--and for better funding to schools and libraries. Why didn't I send that letter? I thought that no one in Washington, DC, would care about a little boy's thoughts.

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and Li'l New Boy is A New Man. The funny thing is that I could write that very letter today just as easily--and with the same relevance. I wonder if that letter could have been a catalyst for a shift in the way politicians do business with tax receipts and federal budgets. Small gestures can create huge change not unlike pebbles cast in ponds, slicing ripples in the current, dicing movement through stillness. Mahatma Gandhi once said that we "must be the change [we] want to see in the world." Good advice, I believe.

Know what's great about doing something good? The ripple effect can affect much more than hope inspired. A little lady refused to give up her seat on a bus once, and the ripple effect of that single action--the unplanned side effect--is that young men and women of every background have a legitimate and lawful claim for equal rights and protection of those rights in a litany of unrelated yet equally important causes and concerns.

Little things still mean something special.

So...what's good? Think on it, and try what comes to heart. It just might make your day go a little better.