“Nothing you do as an individual matters, but it is vitally important you do it anyway.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

 

Why recycle?
Why advocate for others?
Why bother making any changes in your diet?
Why reconcile with a loved one?
Why bother voting?
Gandhi’s paradox certainly touches on a powerful paradox in the relationship between society and individuals: if we as individual don’t really “make a difference,” then why bother doing anything at all? 

 

Imagine that social systems (family, community, the state in which we live, our country, friends who are the same, race, gender, or sexual orientation as us (or different)) are trees and we are the leaves. No individual leaf on the tree matters; whether it lives or dies has no effect on much of anything. But collectively, the leaves are essential to the whole tree because they photosynthesize the sugar that feeds it. Without the leaves, the tree dies. So leaves matter, and they don’t, just like we matter and we don’t. It’s a matter of critical mass. Alone, or one time, doesn’t amount to much, but collectively we can tip the scale. 

 

This metaphor is applicable with our personal health, as well. The trees are our personal “ecosystem” of well-being and the leaves are the small, positive changes we make to improve it. I often hear people say they just can’t see how one small change (made repeatedly) can make a difference in their health…then, after 2, or 6, or 12 months, they see the change.  Hmmm..didn’t Gandhi say something about change, too? 😉

 

Anyway, just some food for thought today, and a lil encouragement from me to to you, from afar, to tip your respective scale. 

 

* What do YOU think? Take action, or resolve yourself to believing one person – or one small change – can’t make a difference? Weigh in below. *