Get involved

Yes, get involved. As the saying goes, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

There is more wrong with our world today than is right. There are too many altercations, crises, issues, and pending catastrophes that we can simply lean back and think that someone else is going to take care of them. Not every one of these "problems" affects every one of us. Some are more obvious, some reflect our own interests, some are such that we wouldn't know where to start. All of that is OK.

No one ... absolutely no one is expecting you to save the world all by yourself. You aren't and are not going to become a superhero. You don't need to be one. In fact, there are none, except in comic books and films based on them. No, you are just like everyone else: human, subject to error, of limited time, energy and other resources. No one is asking you to do everything, all I'm asking is that you do what you can. Every little bit helps.

OK, I do expect you to at least be trying to get yourself together, to become secure in your person and your beliefs, to realize that you can't know everything and can't have all the answers, and to be tolerant of others, just as you want others to be tolerant of you. All I'm asking is that you put your own person behind the problem. All I'm asking is that you put the problem first, then do what you can.

Sociologists and psychologists will tell you that your effective range of influence is no more than about 150 people. Physiologists will tell you that your effective range of operation is probably not much farther than you could walk in a day. That, in case you hadn't noticed, is actually your world. Sure, you've got all this modern technology to expand those ranges, but the farther the range, the lower your effectivity. It's not only time to get involved, it's time to get back to basics.

This is not an original idea, to be sure. I'm not that bright a guy, nor do I have to be. I'm happy that I can recognize and learn from the genius and insight of others. The point I'm trying to make was stated best, I think, by Marian Wright Edelman in her commencement speech to the Milton Academy 1983, in which she said,

"Pick a piece of the puzzle that you can help solve while trying to see how your piece fits into the broader social change puzzle." [1]

That's all you really need to do. Find your piece of the puzzle, and get involved.

Notes
[1] As quoted in Howard Zinn (2003) A People's History of the United States, New York, HarperPerennial, p610.