You Can’t Change the World at Large

But you can change your corner of the world for the better.

Photo by Kelsey Knight on Unsplash

Spend any time online and you will probably become sad, angry, frustrated, or otherwise pulled in a negative direction. Between COVID-19, politics, fretting about the global economy, and all the rest of the current news, things are more uncertain than any previous experience in most of our lifetimes.

This may be a bitter pill to swallow — but there is nothing you can do to change the big picture.

However, that doesn’t mean you are powerless. You can impact change, and you can change the world. But the process is much smaller and more local than you realize.

Every little bit counts

Who you are and what you do in this life matters. The things you do and say, thoughts, feelings, and actions your share, and general way you are at your core will impact the world. It may not be a huge impact, but every little bit counts.

Ever work with glitter? My friends and I refer to it as Craft Herpes because it gets everywhere and never goes away. Days later, you find an impossible speck of glitter on your body somewhere it couldn’t possibly have found its way to. But there it is.

You are a piece of glitter in the world. You may not think your impact means anything at all. Yet there you are, having done your part.

Whether the impact is only on you or other people doesn’t matter. You matter. Maybe you can’t change the world at large but you can change your corner of it for the better.

How? Practice mindfulness.

Mindful positivity differs from toxic positivity

Mindfulness, at its core, is conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. That awareness allows you to know in the present where you are at in mind, body, and spirit. That knowledge will inform you if you are being a force of positivity or negativity.

This doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen and pull you down. They can, they will, and they do. What mindful positivity does, however, is recognize that the negatives are happening and determines how long to allow them to be impactful upon you.