MDF Magazine Issue 62 7 August 2020 (7)

I know that not everyone is going to be in a position
to have this experience, but here’s a little story that
illustrates how everyone, regardless of how much
money they have or who they know, can make a
difference too.
My best friend sent me a story of an Indian woman
who wanted to give back to her community and just
generally make an impact (“The power of a trashed
pencil” by Nipun Mehta, https://www.servicespace.
org/blog/view.php?id=2021). The woman didn’t
have lots of money because she had a menial job
sweeping classrooms, but she made her impact on
the world by collecting all the discarded pencils and
erasers and stuff and giving them to children who
could not afford them. Maybe one of them would be
the next literary star or great artist, who knows? She
probably would never know though.
This all reminds me of that part of chaos theory
called the butterfly effect, which says that if a
butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it
could cause a hurricane in another because all of us,
and everything in the world, are somehow linked. If
we are aware that every single action we carry out,
every word spoken and every thought we think (both
positive and negative) have a bearing on the world
around us, I think it would change the way a lot of us
do things, interact with each other and even think.
So whoever is reading this and maybe feels they
haven’t made much of a difference in life or asks
themselves what the point is of going through the
often mundane process of living (I’ve been in these
places before), just think about this for a while. I
guarantee you, your life has more of an impact on
those around you, and maybe even on people you
don’t know, than you may think….
Here’s a link to my DW website, where I have a blog
(I’ll put this article there too): https://dissectingwobbles.co.za/
"No act of
kindness
however small
is ever
wasted"
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