When I wake up in the morning I feel disheartened, because I feel the insignificance that is me. I think of how the world gets on just fine without anyone knowing who I am, and I wonder whether I was cut out for this world. I worry that the incredibly small amount of time I have on this planet will be wasted and I will have accomplished nothing. I will leave no dent in the universe, and instead, be left on the list of billions of unknown people who have passed on and since then been forgotten.

Then I think of what Bobby said all those years ago and I’m reminded that even the smallest person can make a difference. Just look at what’s happened in our country since the Presidential Election of 2016, since the shooting in Parkland, since the moment you woke up this morning. All of these little, unknown people made from the stuff of stars in the universe somehow made their voices of sanity rise above the fray of incredible and incoherent yelling we’re hearing every day.

“Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one person can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills, misery, ignorance, and violence. Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And in the total of all those acts will be written the history of a generation.”

We all have the capacity to bring about change in this world, even if it is the tiniest bit, and even more so if it goes unknown. We don’t need to be thanked every time we do something good for this world. That should be the norm. What we should be doing more often is calling out the despicable acts of apathy and hate that seem to be covered more often than the sports games we watch on television.

We have to be the change Bobby wanted us to be. We need to know that change does not start out in massive groups (though, of course, we’ve seen the power of these groups in actions recently). Change begins one person at a time, one act at a time, one ripple at a time.

Be the stone that causes that ripple of hope. Be the hope this world so desperately needs. Be good.

ra