Thomas Merton-“Do not depend on the hope of results…you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.”
A friend shared this the other day and it rang very very true to me, that we likely will not see the fruits of our activism, at least not in huge ways. Though, if you look around and track back 100 years you can see movements doing work and life improved for many. There are good things happening now that I did not necessarily expect to see happening when I was a child. And there are millions of human beings helped by activism in ways we could not see, right? You literally do NOT know what your kindness and goodness brings to people.
You do not know that because you chose to stay home (and get vaccinated and wear good masks) you might have prevented a family from losing a parent and so forth and so on.
Your kindness at a grocery store could have been a make or break moment.
And of course that is not enough, but I think the take-a-way is that even in times where things seem dire, the work is important for the work’s sake. The goodness is important for good’s sake.
I struggle with feeling so small and that I have so little influence to change the big huge things I see happening (or not happening depending on the day and topic). But I know I CAN bring goodness into my daily and trust that that is something.
That’s what I got today. Have a picture of the pets for some sweetness.