The state of the world continues to pummel us with bad news, cities in upheaval, wounds reopened, daily clashes. It’s a continual pile of awfulness on top of awfulness upon awfulness.

When terrible things are happening, it seems that our greatest challenge is our own powerlessness. There’s nothing we can do to end the pandemic. There’s nothing we can do to end systemic racism. There’s nothing we can do that is going to make us feel better.

When the problems are so enormous, there seems no way out, because we are hoping for a comprehensive solution that will solve everything. What we really need to look at is something far less complex and overwhelming.

Life is cumulative. It’s the end product of countless small decisions made by countless people, an outcome of a million billion individual actions. And when we think about that, we realize that we do have power, because we have authority over our own actions – one of those million billion that makes the world what it is.

When I’m overwhelmed by the problems of the world, I strip it down to this – what can I do, right here, right now, that would make it even an infinitesimal bit better?

I can’t take away the pain of unheard voices. I can’t change injustice. I can’t change the world in one fell swoop.

But I can use whatever skills I have, in whatever way I can, to create the smallest moment of understanding. And that is a step, that is an action. And I believe there are enough people out there who will choose to make their own steps, their own actions. And that we will move the world together.