The Little Things

Living in the big bad city, you learn to have a little appreciation for nuance. Sure, (total strangers') bodily fluids play a large part in your life, but you also learn to appreciate autumnal light in Central Park, the perfect lox to cream cheese ratio, the fine art of cooking in a kitchen you can barely stand in. You learn to enjoy the little things.

The little things are what matter, whether it be getting up to give someone your seat on the Downtown A/C, or if it's recycling that Diet Coke can. I'm no saint when it comes either giving or environmental issues, but I try to do the little things.

Turn off all the lights, don't leave the water running, recycle loose-leaf paper, sort the plastics and the glass. These are the little things, but if everyone did the little things, it would make a big difference. Cue the shining light of brilliance! The blogger has hit upon something no one has ever said before!

Sure Al Gore might have won a Nobel Peace Prize and brought global attention to a global problem, but... He did it with a slideshow. It was like a PowerPoint show. The last time I saw anyone do something interesting with PowerPoint, it was when someone figured out how to play "Blue Monday" over the transitions from slide to slide. It took time, and energy, and Gore traveled for a long, long time, but it was a small idea: do the slideshow, talk people through it. It's not a huge idea. It's a small idea that had huge repercussions.

The Giving Life has featured people who have done incredible things -- started schools in Africa, run huge conglomerates, etc. And I applaud them all. Now, if only I could get everyone to recycle their soy sauce containers, I would be very proud.

If you have a giving story you want to tell, email us at [e-mail] or post it in the Comments section below.

Comments

[godlessclif]

If we could teach our kids math instead of selling them sugar water we could save the world. Take back the media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqIki33mTgs&feature=related
Square One TV

[greymen]

it's shining not shinning

[greymen]

It's spelled "shining," not shinning, unless you are booting someone with your body part, dear.

[fairwitness]

Ay, there's the rub: "...if only everyone would..." I consider it a good thing that so few of us have the power to make everyone else do ANYTHING, no matter how "good" it might be. Too much good turns INTO bad by its ignorance of life's principles: existence is messy, alas, and wasteful and inevitably tragic and to try to have the good without the bad makes one crazy.

That said, it's then, of course, reasonable to do one's best to ease the burden one's existence causes others, to do all the small things that contribute. But let's keep it personal, avoiding the temtation to project and generalize our "good" impluses and so make demands on others which, usually, breed the opposite of what one desires.

[maddogbitesback]

It is the little things. I pick up pop cans and drag them home to recycle. Everything I do for the environment I multiply by six billion and everything I don't do I multiply by six billion times. Six billion plastic bags for everyone I use. Suddenly my action becomes huge. Six billion price tags recycled. I never thought how huge an amount of paper goes into price tags. Plus the plastic that attaches them.

I have saved a lot of money by simply saving the environment. Once in a while I do something bad bad bad but not often. I am healthier and wealthier because I don't drive, do save on electricity, water, cleaning products, clothes, furniture and so on. I also make my doctor happy.