It frustrates me when people don’t do anything because they think it won’t matter.

“Oh, it’s just a drop of water in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach, a star in the night sky.  Without that drop, the ocean is still as expansive; without that grain, the beach is still as solid; without that star, the night sky is still as bright.  You’ll never miss it.”

Everything has an origin point. Don't underestimate just one little thing. photo credit: shannonstanley.wordpress.com

But you know what?  It does matter!  That one drop creates ripples, affecting its neighbors that then affect their neighbors until a wave builds up.  Besides, actions reflect a mentality, so not making one small change here can lead to not making another small change there.  If you work incrementally, the next thing you know, you’ve made a huge change.  It takes time and patience to see results that are truly worthy of gaining, as well as persistence.

Every time you leave the water running, don’t turn off the lights, don’t donate your time or money, and otherwise deem things too much effort and not enough tangible reward, you are increasing the vicious cycle of inaction and indifference.  Aggregated, each little action adds up to become a trend, a movement.  And thus, nobody should ever give up from the get-go, thinking, “Well it won’t really matter that much overall.”  It can and it will, if you stick to it, then start to affect the people in your life too.  Eventually, you’ll have something on a scale you never imagined, because the power of compounding has taken effect and created something much larger than just you.

And so, I’m going to start increasing the number of registered bone marrow donors (particularly ones of Asian descent), one person at a time until we get a massive database.  It’s pathetic that there’s only 7% of Asian Americans on the US who are currently available to donate when there are thousands of people in need.  I’ve already gotten some friends to enter themselves into the registry and slowly started to educate them not only on the need, but the misconception that it is a painful procedure to extract the marrow.  What are you waiting for?  Go register yourself now!  And also go learn more about one young lady who is fighting the battle against leukemia right now.

I’m also taking environmentalism one step at a time, constantly weeding out the things and habits in my life that are unsustainable, replacing them with more globally-friendly alternatives.

Be the impetus for change.  Start something.  Then keep working hard as the effects ripple further and faster.  This goes for anything you care about, from our deteriorating environment to our broken education system to poverty to deadly diseases.  Everything has got to start somewhere!