“We don’t have to be perfect saints or know every answer to every question to begin working for a more just world. We can be wounded or hesitant ourselves, sometimes profoundly so.”
– Paul Loeb (author of “The Impossible Will Take A Little While”)
When dancers and actors go on stage, people often say “Break a Leg”, a traditional, if not ironic, way of offering good luck for a successful performance. Recently, I heard a story of how one therapist said to another therapist who was leaving to go into session with a client, “Make a dent!”
The therapist going into session had been lamenting her recent “inability” to be effective with this client, and upon hearing those words, reported feeling uplifted. It created an aha! moment for her. Therapists easily forget that it isn’t their job to wave a magic wand and eliminate ALL the problems of their clients. A sense of failure can loom when changes aren’t happening as quickly as hoped.
Like therapists, many of us think that the moment we recognize a change needs to be made or a problem fixed, we should be able to just take care of it – all of it, and now. We start to feel hopeless when our intentions don’t match our ability to immediately carry out our goals. This is when we need to say to ourselves and each other, “Make a dent!” and trust the process of change necessitates patience, compassion and a belief that progress comes incrementally, in small quiet ways, rather than like a gigantic explosion in the night.
I suggest this story called “Politcal Paralysis” by Danusha Veronica Goska from Paul Loeb’s inspiring collection of stories about small gestures, patience, common virtues, and unwitnessed acts of goodness that all add up to significant changes in our lives ~ and in the world. After these two reads, you may think twice before saying out loud, “There is nothing I can do” when you feel stuck or ineffective, whether for yourself, your loved ones, your community – your world.