Too small to make a difference

As I am in the personal development field, most of my work very naturally focuses on ways you can improve yourself, become more successful, happier, achieve your goals, live your dreams etc.  For some people this is enough.  But others want to improve the world around them and make things better for everyone else.  They begin trying and then find they do not seem to be making the difference they had hoped for and give up.  Or they don't even begin trying in the first place, believing they are too small to make a difference.

But can you be too small to make a difference?  Have you heard the saying "if you think you are too small or insignificant to make a difference you have obviously not shared your bedroom with a mosquito"?  I always chuckle when I hear that, but it is so true!  Think about it for a moment.  Such a small insect can make your whole night miserable!  I know nothing about you, but even so I can assure you that you are far more significant than a mosquito!

Have you heard about quantum computers?  Quantum physics is the physics that deals with the very, very small.  Not at a size you can see with an optical microscope but at the size of atoms or even smaller particles.  Quantum physics used to be very theoretical with little apparent practical use.  But a quantum computer, because of some of the very weird peculiarities of quantum physics, can perform tasks very many times faster than the fastest supercomputer.  Google and NASA claim their D-Wave quantum computer is 3,600 times faster, and some scientists expect future quantum computers to be far faster than that.  I have even heard one scientist claim they will be able to perform in a few minutes a calculation that would take today's computers all the time that has passed since the creation of the universe!  Imagine that!

The moral from both these concepts is that you should never think yourself too small or too insignificant to make a difference.  You are most certainly not!

If you do not see that difference, do not be discouraged.  We are all making a difference in the world around us all the time, but usually we will not see that difference.  For example, maybe you smile and say hello to someone you pass in the street, a complete stranger.  You will probably never know what difference that made, but it could be a very big difference.  Perhaps that person was feeling really miserable, and suddenly your smile changed their whole day.  They then reflected that by passing on their new happiness to others around them.  It is like a chain reaction (borrowing from atomic physics again)!  The result of that one smile could be dozens or even hundreds of smiles.  Dozens or hundreds of people whose lives were made happier just because of a very simple and brief action by you.  An action you probably never thought twice about.

You may think this sounds extreme, but it is not.  It is often the small and simple things we do that can make such a difference in the world.

Remember this while you are trying to become a better person.  Everything you do to make yourself better will make the world a better place.  Remember the quote from the Talmud which says "whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world" (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9).  Although the Talmud is specifically talking about saving a life here, the meaning of that quote can be extended to cover all good acts.

Keep working on your self improvement, knowing that self improvement will improve the world around you in so many ways.  Congratulate yourself for every step forward you take, accepting that you have already made the world a better place, and all the steps you make in the future are going to make it even better still.