I’ve always liked this idea, this notion, that by helping one person, you can change their world. I’ve always believed it to be true; after all,
Nobody ever made a bigger mistake than one who did nothing because they could only do a little.
Sydney Smith
Reading this great quote again recently, I was struck by something I don’t think I’ve noticed before. Suddenly I saw: ‘might not change the world’. Might not? Then I thought why not turn the whole think around: I could as easily say ‘Helping one person might change the world …’.
But, you know, my thinking went even further: I realized that might and might not have nothing to do with it. The reality is that every action we take, and that includes the action of helping other living beings (as well as harming them, which is a whole other story for another time), actually does change the world.
Obviously we can’t always (actually it’s more like very rarely) see those changes, nor are we able to dictate what the changes will be or predict all the possible outcomes. We may think we know what the results of our actions will be; we may even guess right. Whatever the case, all we can do is take action while realising that impacts always occur and just keep on happening in a kind of cascading effect that literally never stops.
Then I thought about it some more, wondering how we can actually come to fully realise that the might not in this marvelous saying, which speaks of a negative possibility, is more an always will, which points to something definite, as well as a whole lot more positive.
All is One on the physical and the non-physical levels
We all have had at some time a sense that we are all connected; we feel that we are part of nature, part of something bigger than just a lone disconnected individual. But, have you ever had the feeling that you might be more than just a ‘part of’ the world or nature’? Have you ever had a sense that you are nature? Maybe this sounds a bit esoteric: But we are one Self; we are all physical manifestations of the one consciousness, the one Divine.
And of course we can’t know for sure what goes on beyond the physical world. But, even at that most basic level of the material, especially as we get down to the microscopic and even atomic levels, it’s hard to tell individual beings apart. Atoms merge and cross over, interact, and change, between all living and non-living things.
So, who’s to say that one small action on my part, one small change, won’t have a cascading effect as the ripples (that’s a good way to put it isn’t it?) from that action spread through the world and beyond.
The ‘What can One Person Do?’ Dilemma
Our Sydney Smith quote in a sense tackles this agonising question for us. Still, you might think that one person can’t do a lot when the needs are so vast and so many and so intractable. There is always something we can do, even at the supposedly one person, one individual level, even if as Mr Smith says, it’s a small thing we do.
Just think how many people everywhere are asking this same question: ‘What can one person do?’
If even a tiny percentage of those questioning individuals answered that they could do something, then you would start to see changes taking place for sure. How could all those actions not add up to a changed world?
The Multiplier Effect
Just now I used the words ‘add up’. Well actually it’s more like a multiplication effect.
Remember we mentioned earlier the idea of a cascading effect always in action whenever any action of any kind is performed? Isn’t there a saying that goes something like: if a butterfly flaps its wings in a forest somewhere in the world, then a polar bear in the Arctic sneezes? Okay, that’s not quite it but you know what I mean.
Then there is that concept of ‘pay it forward’. It’s an easy concept to grasp, though I don’t especially like the language. For me it’s more to do with love, compassion, empathy, and a desire to make things better.
So, the truth is, helping one person does indeed change the world for that one person. And whatever we do for that one person, it also does definitely change the whole world. It may not appear to us personally that everything in the world has changed simply because of our one, apparently tiny action, but the world, (and that includes all of us who live here or anywhere else for that matter) is one living entity, one being, so those multiplying impacts just go on affecting everything and everyone in some way.
We may think of ourselves as just one separate little individual, but we are more than simply united with all life; we are that life, just as all life is us. And, as for believing we can be ‘agents of change’, we may think that it’s all too hard; too many problems; what can I do? The road to changing the world seems to be blocked, seems to be impassable.
Well, one teacher I admire is Ramdas. Among the many great things he said, this one stands out for me above them all. I may have the wording a bit wrong, but basically the message is:
If you set your feet upon the path, then you are already at your goal
Which is another way of saying that if you help one person, then you have changed the world.
Peace
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 