Category: Make a Difference

Does the news upset you? Me, too.

Recently I reflected on my responses to two people who were talking about how certain news items were affecting them, and I realized that what I said to them was what I, myself, needed to hear:

Whatever outrage we feel should be directed toward productive change within our means. Otherwise it just simmers with no outlet, and that harms us.

Of course we’re going to be upset over many of the things happening in the world. I don’t think it’s healthy to simply shrug off instances of gun violence like the racist attack in Buffalo, New York, and the anti-Taiwanese attack in California the following day. (As I wrote the first draft of this post, news was breaking about about yet another mass shooting, this one at an elementary school in Texas.)

But simply allowing the news to upset us doesn’t do anyone any good.

So what should we do?

First, we should ask ourselves: Is the thing that is upsetting me one of my priorities?

If the answer is “yes,” then it’s time to take action.

But what if the answer is “no”?

First, we can ask ourselves if we need to reshuffle our priorities. I’ve recently done that. While I’m still concerned about slavery, these days I’m even more concerned about climate change and voting rights, so I’m channeling more of my energy to those issues and significantly less to anti-slavery activities. I still try to keep slavery in mind as I make purchasing decisions. If someone asked me to throw an anti-slavery chocolate party, I’d still try to say “yes.” But I devote much less attention to it now, simply because I can’t tackle everything.

If your priorities haven’t changed but you still want to act on an upsetting piece of news, you might decide to act in a small way, such as dashing off a letter to the editor. Or, if you have the capacity (I suspect few of us do, so please be honest with yourself about this), you can add this new issue to your priorities.

And if you don’t have the capacity to add yet another priority and can’t think of a small, achievable way that you can make a difference, it’s time to change tactics.

When taking action isn’t realistic, it’s time to let it go.

There’s nothing wrong with picking up a book, calling a friend, or otherwise engaging in some form of escape.

“Escapism” is often used negatively, and certainly it can be unhealthy to cope with the news by downing a bottle of wine or spending all of your time in a fantasy world. But I believe that escaping into a good story or a favorite hobby is far better than spending unproductive time seething over something you can’t change. An escape can distract us and, even better, it can recharge us, possibly giving us the break we need to be able to move beyond outrage to action.

The world is full of upsetting news. It’s easy to let ourselves dwell on our outrage and our fear for the future.

But it’s more productive and better for us to keep these things in mind:

• I can do something, even if it’s small, to make a difference.
• I can’t do everything. If I try, I’ll just end up being ineffective.
• When I’m physically or emotionally exhausted, or when I’m upset by a situation I can’t change, it’s a good idea to let it go and do something that makes me happy instead. I don’t need to ignore the bad news, but I may need a break.

Addendum on 5/25/22: How I Followed My Own Advice

Readers may be interested in knowing what I did after I published this post yesterday.

Knowing that gun control is not one of my top priorities but that I wanted to take some sort of action, I reached out to my two senators and my representative and asked them to prioritize gun control legislation before people forget the tragedies that have happened this month.

Then I walked away from my computer and made dinner while listening to The Silmarillion.

I may write about gun control in a future blog post — it’s something I’ve entertained off and on for a while. But for now, I’ve taken a small, practical action and avoided simply stewing in my emotions.

When my child was young, we would attend church together. Just before the sermon, one of the pastors would give a children’s sermon. Many of the children, my own included, would sit on the steps leading up to the altar, where they would listen to the children’s sermon and answer the pastor’s questions.

On one particular Sunday, the pastor asked the children why we go to church. Up until that day, my child, if she had answered any of the questions at all, had not said anything particularly memorable. But this time she gave an answer that moved me: “To bring people hope.”

I can’t take credit for teaching her that. It was one of those times when children seem wiser than adults. If we go to church simply to worship God… well, God can be worshipped any place, at any time. If we go because we should, then church is merely a duty we assume out of a sense of responsibility or guilt. If we go to get something out of it, we are focused on ourselves. (I’m not saying that we shouldn’t get anything out of it or that it is bad to want things that benefit us, but I would hope we go for additional reasons.) But to go to church because by going you can somehow bring others hope? What a beautiful reason to go! It was something I had never thought of before.

Bringing hope to others feels like a marvelous way to make a difference in the world.

But what if you aren’t feeling very hopeful yourself?

These days, my store of hope is a bit low. Climate news is grim. I despair over U.S. politics. The area where I live seems to be in an unending COVID-19 wave, and with news of a new, worrisome variant, I wonder if the pandemic will ever end. While I believe that each one of us has the power to make a difference, these problems seem overwhelming.

If you’re running low on hope, how on earth can you bring it to others?

My gut feeling is “simply by showing up.” I feel like one of the best things you can do when you are feeling hopeless is to reach out to others anyway.

Is my gut feeling wrong?

Mental health experts advise that people who feel hopeless spend time with others and take action on what worries them.

While there’s more to advice for people who are feeling hopeless than just those two things (for instance, a social worker writing for Verywell Mind advises that you question your beliefs), my hunch that you should just show up anyway is on target.

Mental Health America advises: “Not many things are lonelier than watching the world burn when no one around you can see it. Find someone else who can see it, and talk to them about it. Solving the biggest problems in the world is going to require cooperation.”

And Healthline offers this wisdom: “… it’s worth considering that loved ones might be grappling with similar emotions. Opening up gives them a chance to share their own struggles so you can support each other.”

You don’t have to fake optimism. But spending time with other people who care about the things that trouble you can give you a team to work with and a reminder that you aren’t the only person who’s concerned. You have companions on this journey, and there’s nothing like undergoing something difficult with others by your side to give you a sense of hope.

To put it in nerdy terms: Imagine how Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom would have gone without Sam. When things look utterly bleak, your presence can help others continue on the journey… and they, in turn, can encourage you.

Note: Future posts will be irregular for a while.

I’ve been a rule-breaker with this blog from day one. My blog should be focused. Food writers writer about food. Pop culture bloggers blog about pop culture. On the website I created to promote myself as a writer, editor, and professional communicator, I blog about making a difference and about underappreciated bits of culture that bring me joy. I should have a well-established brand and should stay on brand. The problem is that I’m a person, not a brand, and part of what makes me, me is that I have many interests. I think this blog is better for my bringing my real self to it, rather than a professional persona. Honestly, how many years of writing tips and tricks could I have offered had I stuck to the rules and stayed focused? And could I really offer years of material that was significantly different from what you might find on other writing blogs?

I’m about to break another rule: I’m going to post irregularly for a while. Life feels very busy, and much as I enjoy the blog, writing posts has become one more item on my to do list. A good blogger posts regularly, and for a long time, I’ve tried to do that. I’ve changed the frequency of my posts over time, and I’ve sometimes given myself time off, but I’ve tried to announce everything ahead of time. I wanted to prove to anyone who was considering using my services that I can deliver writing on time.

But recently I realized that there are plenty of people out there who know I’m reliable. I don’t feel the need to prove that any longer.

So rather than suspend my writing for the blog altogether, I’m going to move to an irregular schedule. Maybe I’ll take a break until sometime after Christmas, or maybe I’ll post before then. I’m not sure at this point. But I do promise that I will continue to post from time to time, and if and when I feel ready to embrace a more frequent, regular schedule, I’ll announce that.

Thanks for being a reader!

I’ve written plenty of posts about how small things make a difference.

But recent events in the lives of my loved ones have really brought home how easy it is to make a difference through ordinary acts… and how unglamorous those acts can be.

I want to leave a mark on the world…

I suppose it could be called a midlife crisis, but not too many years ago, I really wanted to do something big to change the world. I was working for a university. We often talked about how we were preparing future leaders to make a difference. I would think, “I don’t want just an indirect role in preparing future leaders. I want to be among them.” I read biographies of people like Elizabeth Fry and William Wilberforce, and I wanted to be like them.

We need people to do big things, but I was discounting how many opportunities I had to make a difference in my daily life, even though they weren’t glamorous.

Making a difference is simply showing up.

A friend of mine has suffered a major loss. My first reaction was to want to do something, like helping with a specific task. Those things are important, but it became clear early on that the best way I could support this person was to simply show up and be with them.

That’s not going to change the world. But, combined with the actions of other people, my showing up can make a real difference in one person’s life.

Making a difference can be tedious… even downright awful.

Even dream jobs can be filled with tedium and rotten days. But many of the tedious and awful things we do, whether on the job or in our daily lives, actually make a difference.

One of my family members recently needed to go to the emergency room at 3:30 a.m. It wasn’t a “call an ambulance” sort of emergency, but it couldn’t wait until morning, so I drove them.

Let me make two things clear:

1. While it wasn’t fun for me, I realize it was more awful for them. They were in serious pain and were sick to their stomach, and my navigational software wasn’t working properly, so the poor person was having to read me directions on top of everything else.
2. I was no hero. I was tired. I was unhappy that I had to travel to an ER that I didn’t know, rather than our local emergency room, because the person felt (rightly, I think) that they should go to the same hospital where they’d had outpatient surgery related to their emergency. The best I can say for myself is that I didn’t complain, and I tried to get to our destination quickly.

This act of service was decidedly unsexy. When my passenger started throwing up in my car (thankfully they had a bag handy), the noise and smell made my stomach turn. I was out of sorts the next day. And while I know my loved one appreciated being dropped off at the ER, this was not one of those moments that they will always remember as something amazing that someone did for them. It was simply a trip to the ER with me muttering “dammit” when I missed a turn. Nevertheless, it was the most important thing I could have done with my life at that moment.

This is what make a difference looks like…

• Making a difference looks like doing a housemate’s chores when they are exhausted.
• Making a difference looks like running out to buy tissues and chicken noodle soup for someone who has a cold.
• Making a difference looks like saying, “Don’t worry, we can take it easy today” if the person you’re visiting on your vacation isn’t feeling great… even if you have to cancel some really fun plans.
• Making a difference looks like changing a diaper.
• Making a difference looks like walking the dog.
• Making a difference looks like checking in on someone you’re worried about.
• Making a difference also looks like bigger things — volunteering, protesting, donating. It may even look like the really big things, such as starting a nonprofit to tackle a problem. But don’t be fooled. Some of the best ways for us to make a difference — as trivial as they may seem — are staring us right in the face.

Here in the United States, where I live, we thought we were entering a new “pandemic-is-ending” phase. As many of us got vaccinated, we felt protected — and, indeed, the number of cases was dropping for a while, particularly in areas where people embraced the vaccine. Mask mandates ended. Places that had voluntarily closed beyond any government-imposed shutdowns began opening their doors. If we were paying attention, we knew that COVID-19 was still raging in many places outside the U.S., but we still felt like we’d turned the corner.

And then the delta variant changed things. Now some places are requiring masks again. Some schools, workplaces, or voluntary activities, no longer trusting that enough people will do the right thing, are making vaccines mandatory. We are once again asking, “What’s safe?”

It’s time to don our masks again

… and, if for some reason, you, dear reader, are able to be vaccinated but have not yet done so, it’s time to take care of that.

I know enough about my regular readers to guess that those who have been able to get the vaccine probably have done so. I also don’t think I can convince people who are strongly against the vaccine to get vaccinated. But if you’re on the fence, please consider these reasons to mask up as reasons to get vaccinated as well. And if you aren’t crazy about voluntarily wearing a mask again, read on.

Another year of isolation will be very hard on many of us.

When the pandemic-related shutdowns began last year, many people were concerned about the toll these shutdowns would take on mental health. Indeed, the isolation was hard on many (probably most of us), and especially so for young people. But the majority of us got by one way or another. This includes people I know who were in high-risk groups and who lived alone. It was a difficult time, but they weathered the storm.

But if people in high-risk groups have to self-isolate again in the near future, I think it will be far more difficult on them the second time around. Loneliness can be brutal. If we’re truly concerned about the toll that the pandemic can take on mental health, it’s important that we work hard to beat it. Masking up and getting vaccinated are both excellent ways to do this, as well as staying home when you are sick.

If people feel unsafe, this could harm many businesses.

Another concern people had last year was the effect shutdowns would have upon businesses and other organizations, such as arts groups. In fact, some businesses have failed as a result of the pandemic. Of course businesses fail all the time, particularly during economic downturns or as a result of failing to adapt to cultural changes, and it’s always hard to see organizations you love disappear.

But watching places we loved close due to the pandemic seems to add insult to injury. Some people may blame the shutdowns, although I don’t think it’s that simple. Within the United States now, a number of people have postponed travel plans because of the delta variant. It doesn’t take government-imposed shutdowns to slow consumer spending.

The happy news is that many independent businesses and cultural organizations have survived because they were able to adapt and stay afloat long enough to reopen their doors recently as people began to feel safer going out.

But if we continue to experience wave upon wave of COVID-19 cases, people may feel unsafe enough about going out that these businesses will once again suffer… and sooner or later, many more will end up closing.

If it helps, here’s a list of things that are more uncomfortable than wearing a mask.

I understand the discomfort of wearing a mask. Yes, it sometimes can feel more difficult to breath — particularly if you are exercising — when you have a mask on.

But it may help to think of all of the things you may have endured, or watched others endure, that are far worse than a wearing a mask. (And I’m not counting COVID-19 in this list, though it certainly could be included.)

For example…

• Giving birth (in fact, many part of pregnancy can be more uncomfortable than wearing a mask)
• Appendicitis
• Passing a kidney stone
• Waking up in the middle of the night with a charley horse
• Prepping for a colonoscopy (If you are of the age to do this and have been avoiding it, please don’t let the prep discourage you from getting a colonoscopy. No, the prep isn’t pleasant, but it is far better than dying of colon cancer.)
• An intense job interview
• Asking someone on a date (unless you are supremely confident or don’t care about the outcome)
• A gastrointestinal illness that has you vomiting long after you’ve emptied your stomach, leaving you so wrung out that you just fall asleep on the floor near the toilet after your umpteenth trip to the bathroom, and you are so feverish that the cool tiles actually feel good (or was that just me?)

I’m sure you could add to this list. The point is: You’ve already endured extremely unpleasant things. You are strong, and you can do this. Let’s put on our masks and (if we haven’t already) get our vaccinations and get this thing under control.

Note: I have a family commitment and will be taking about a month off the blog. The next post should be on Monday, September 20.

When I wrote about sayings to live by, I didn’t include one of the things taped to my office wall, because it encompasses more than just a short quote. What I wrote down is a shorter version of a tweet that one of my favorite podcast hosts, Linda Holmes, retweeted. Specifically I wrote: “‘Fangirl out’ – If you like someone’s work, you should tell them. Even if you don’t think they need to hear it.”

But while the tweet that Holmes shared is at the heart of what I want to live by, I loved her additional comment about writing a heart-felt thank you note. It made me wonder: What if I started sending fan letters — not in the hopes of getting something, but simply to tell someone “I like your work”?

A fan letter a week

Since then, I’ve been trying to write a “fan letter” every week. There have been plenty of weeks when I’ve missed writing that letter — we just added a new dog to our house, so I skipped this week’s letter in favor of helping her acclimate to her new home — but I’ve sent far more fan mail this year than I have throughout the rest of my life.

It’s not that I’ve never written such mail before. I wrote a lengthy fan letter to Bruce Cockburn about 15 years ago, because I think he’s amazing. After I published Geek Culture, I sent a copy to David Tennant, because I thought he might appreciate a book about fans and fandoms, especially one with a cover photo of someone cosplaying the Tenth Doctor. But I’ve only recently made writing fan letters a regular practice. Many of the people I write to are writers, from the famous (N. K. Jemisin) to the not-so-famous (Katie Langston — I’ll be reviewing her book soon). But I’ve written to other celebrities, too, including Tan France of Queer Eye, who helps me see wardrobe possibilities I don’t normally think of (I’m not good at putting together outfits), and political strategist Mike Murphy, because I appreciate his desire for a better world and concerns about the direction his political party is taking.

As much as possible, I try to send real letters. I figure if what I write actually crosses the recipient’s desk, and if it is meaningful to them in any way, a letter is a lot more fun to hang on to than an electronic message. But if all I have is a “contact us” page, or if, as in the case of Langston, I just want them to hear right away how much I love their work, then I will communicate electronically.

And, as I mentioned at the outset, I write with no expectations. I’m well aware that many people will probably never even read what I write, and if they do, I certainly don’t expect to hear back from them. These letters aren’t for me; they’re for the recipients. The important thing is that I reach out to let them know I enjoy their work — even if I think that they get so much fan mail that they will never see my words of appreciation. You never know.

Beyond fan mail

I’m concentrating on fan mail with my efforts, but of course there are other ways you can let people know you appreciate what they do. Folks who are fairly new in their field might see and be grateful for a glowing review on Amazon or even Google (there’s no reason you can’t write a fannish review of a plumber). You can thank a service person for their excellent work and then follow up with a positive note to their manager. You can email a coworker and say, “I really appreciate the way you kept the meeting moving along and kept us all on topic. I wish more people ran meetings that way.”

Whatever you do, the point is to let someone know that their work has made a difference in your life. Maybe their movie made you see something in a new light or their song brought you great joy. Maybe they made the best pad thai you’ve ever tasted. Whatever it is, let them know. Don’t let their fame (or lack thereof) stop you. Everyone can have days when they need the lift you get when hearing “well done.” You may never know whose life you have touched by reaching out to let them know you’re a fan.

Last year I wrote about adages that I try to live by.

More recently I’ve been collecting quotes from social media and pop culture and posting them on the wall beside my desk to remind myself of how I want to live.

Some of the quotes I’ve written down aren’t really about making a difference. Toward the end of my favorite anime (Hunter x Hunter), one character shares the following bit of advice: “Enjoy the little detours to the fullest, because that’s where you’ll find the things more important than what you want.” That seemed particularly apropos during a pandemic, but I don’t know that living by it will help me make a difference (other than perhaps being a more pleasant person to be around).

But three of the sayings I’ve collected can, I think, help us change the world in some small way. Here they are:

“Gentle but fierce”

I follow Mark Ruffalo on Twitter, not so much because I’m a fan (although I do like his work in the Avengers movies), but because I’m interested in what he has to say. Because I interact with others on Twitter far more than I interact with him, he doesn’t usually pop up at the top of my feed. Somehow, his birthday post last year managed to catch my attention — again, not for the reason you might think. The post features (tasteful) photos of him in a bubble bath. But what caught my eye was his message, which ended, “Set out to defy the limitations life, self, and others have in mind for you. Be gentle but fierce about it.”

I rather like his message about defying limitations, but my favorite part was the phrase “gentle but fierce.” And the more I thought about, the more I thought it’s a great way to handle life in general, not just limitations that are imposed on you. Angry confrontations are all around us; the world needs our gentleness. But gentleness doesn’t mean failing to stand up for what’s right. That’s where we are called to be fierce. What would the world look like if we resolved to try to embody being “gentle but fierce”?

“Live fully, love wastefully”

This is pulled from a quotation from John Shelby Spong, a retired bishop of the Episcopal Church. I believe I also saw this somewhere on social media, probably Instagram. The full quotation (more or less — I’ve seen different versions online) is “live fully, love wastefully, and be all that we can be.” I was presumptuous and decided I could improve on it. First, I believe that if you are living fully, you are already being all that you can be, so the third part of the quotation seems redundant to me. “Be all that we can be” also sounds far too much like an Army commercial from my youth for me to take it seriously. So I just wrote down “Live fully and love wastefully” and taped it to my wall.

My insistence on editing Spong aside, I do love the idea of living fully and loving wastefully — especially the loving wastefully bit. Again, it seems to me that the world would change drastically if we would try to live by those words, pouring out love, loving others extravagantly, recklessly, even wastefully. What if we loved others with no regard for whether or not our love would be appreciated or returned? What a beautiful waste! It’s a goal I’ll never fully achieve, but it’s one worth striving for.

“That’s how we’re gonna win. Not by fighting what we hate but saving what we love.”

If you’re a Star Wars nerd, you’ll recognize this line. Rose Tico says it to Finn toward the end of The Last Jedi after preventing Finn from sacrificing himself for the good of the Resistance.

Some fans hate that line, asking: Wasn’t that what Finn was trying to do — save the Resistance? They make a valid point. The writer gave Rose a great line, but he put it in a questionable context. (I wonder, though… Was Finn really acting out of a desire to save what he loved, or was he actually driven by his hatred of the First Order? In this series, the answer to that question really matters.)

Context aside, I love the notion of focusing our efforts on saving what we love rather than fighting what we hate. If we focus on fighting what we hate, then even if we “win,” we may find that we have been reduced to our hatred. But if we focus on saving what we love, we are more likely to come out of the conflict without having become the very thing we despised.

I think all three of these quotations belong together. The first combines the gentleness that can be found in love with the fierceness we need to fight for what is right. The second again calls us to love, even when that love seems like a waste, as well as to live fully, which can be difficult to do if we don’t bring a certain ferocity to life. The third calls us to exercise the strength that can be found in love as we face the things that would challenge that love. If we can do that, I have no doubt we’ll make a difference in the lives of those around us.

I am not a Mennonite, but I own four books published by Herald Press, an imprint of Menno Media. I cherish these books because they have a lot to teach me about topics like simplicity and justice.

Three of the books are cookbooks: the classic More-With-Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre, Simply in Season by Cathleen Hockman-Wert and Mary Beth Lind, and Extending the Table by Joetta Handrich Schlabach. The fourth book, Living More With Less by Doris Janzen Longacre addresses sustainable living. If you want to learn more about making a difference, you can’t go wrong with these books.

More-with-Less Cookbook

This is the book that started it all. In the 1970s, the Mennonite Central Committee called for Mennonite and Brethren in Christ community households to consume 10 percent less food in order to address North American overconsumption and world need. The committee then commissioned a cookbook with recipes that could help households respond to their call to use less. The cookbook is filled with recipe submissions, mostly from the United States and Canada. Think of it as a church cookbook on steroids, covering a larger territory than your typical church cookbook and built around a specific purpose: caring for the hungry by reducing overconsumption.

My copy of the cookbook is a reprint of the original 1976 edition. It contains introductory chapters on the world food situation as it was at the time, a theological reflection on the importance of reducing food consumption in North America in order to address global hunger, suggestions for building a simpler diet, and reflections on how such a diet does not need to be plain or joyless. The chapters that follow include sections with recipes for breads; cereals; beans, soybeans, and lentils; main dishes and casseroles; eggs, milk, and cheese dishes; meats and fish; soups; vegetables; salads; desserts, cakes and cookies; preserves; and snacks and non-food items, such as laundry soap and play-dough.

This is the cookbook I use the least, because it feels a bit dated. Some of the recipes call for margarine, which I never use. But despite the fact that I don’t turn to this book that often, I find it valuable. It does include recipes my family enjoys, especially easy lentil stew. It also has suggestions for leftovers at the end of many of the chapters, including listings of recipes elsewhere in the book that can help you use leftovers.

The 40th anniversary edition, published in 2016, apparently includes some updates to recipes, which may be just what the cookbook needs to keep it fresh. Regardless, using it can help cooks focus on more responsible eating.

Simply in Season

This cookbook is particularly useful for those who wish to cook more in-season foods. Once again, the cookbook is based on contributed recipes. It is divided into five main sections: one with recipes for each season and an “all seasons” section. A short introductory section gives advice on storing and preparing different fruits and vegetables. Some of the recipes I’ve tried have been just “okay,” but others are quite good, particularly the taco soup and slow cooker chili in the All Seasons chapter.

There’s lots of additional material scattered throughout the cookbook, including information on things like crop diversity and personal reflections on food. At the end of each section, there is a list of “invitations to action,” such as visiting a farmers market, starting a community garden, sharing meals with others, buying fairly traded products, and encouraging your grocery store to carry locally grown food.

Extending the Table

The Mennonite Central Committee commissioned this cookbook “to promote global understanding and celebrate the variety of world cultures.” It is by far my favorite of the three cookbooks. It’s one I turn to often, because so many of the recipes I’ve tried are very flavorful. Once again, the recipes were submitted, but this time they come from around the world. Among our favorites are African greens (sukuma wiki) from Kenya, an assorted vegetable sauté (oseng oseng sayuran) from Indonesia, bang bang chicken (bang bang ji) from China, and shrimp curry (chingri mash torkari) from Bangladesh. Like Simply in Season, this cookbook includes supplemental information scattered throughout, including short essays on subjects such as water, marketplaces, and cornmeal porridge, which can help give us a more global perspective on food.

Living More With Less

Living More With Less is very different from the three cookbooks I’ve mentioned. The 30th anniversary edition, the one I own, is made up of three parts. The first part is introductory material. The second addresses five “life standards”: do justice, learn from the world community, nurture people, cherish the natural order, and nonconform freely. The third part is made up of personal stories from people who are trying to live just, sustainable lives. This part is organized around topics such as money and stewardship, cooking and eating, recreation and schedules, and strengthening each other and organizing communities.

The chapters on the five life standards are informative and include practical suggestions. In the chapter on learning from the world community, contributors from Indonesia and Paraguay ask if Americans could try to make do with fewer kitchen appliances. In the section on nonconforming freely, one person from Canada wrote about choosing to live without their van for a year.

We announced our decision to members of our small Mennonite congregation. In the weeks that followed, another couple said they were retiring their old car. With money from a provincial incentive program, they went car-free and bought bus tickets. Another couple sent around an email and said they intended to keep their car but set up a borrowing policy for those who need it. … With these actions in our small, faith-based community, we were embodying a hint of what a more sustainable, interdependent society could look like.

Part 3 is even more useful, filled with ways we can lighten our impact on the planet and care more for our neighbors. In a chapter on homes, one contributor wrote about how his family chose a roofing contractor based on what the company planned to do with the old shingles; the contractor they chose takes the shingles to a place that recycles them into road substrates. The Clothes and Bodies chapter includes a story about a couple who consciously decided to wear shirts that promote nonprofits rather than clothing with brand names. In the Recreation and Schedules chapter, the director of athletics from Eastern Mennonite University shares ways families can balance kids’ sports time with family time.

Some of the ideas in this book won’t be new to you. I wasn’t surprised by a suggestion to wash laundry in cold water; for years, I’ve rarely used anything but cold water to wash clothes. But there are so many ideas for living more simply in this book that I doubt anyone could come away without something new they could try.

We don’t have to be Mennonites to appreciate the ways the contributors to these books are dedicated to justice, the environment, love, and the global community. Any or all of these books are worth checking out from your library or purchasing for yourself.

A note about my next post…

Life is very full right now. I’m enjoying good things, like seeing a family member for the first time in more than a year now that we are all fully vaccinated. I’m also dealing with difficulties, like a pet who isn’t very interested in his food any more. I’m going to take a short break from the blog and return when I have a little more bandwidth. I believe this will be sometime in mid- to late June.

The pandemic isn’t over yet, but I think most of us are feeling hopeful that the end is in sight.

It would be wonderful if we all woke up tomorrow and discovered that COVID-19 was just a collective nightmare. Since that isn’t going to happen, perhaps we can look at what we have learned and how we can use that knowledge in our post-pandemic lives. While I think it is important to look at lessons learned on a large scale (early in the pandemic I reflected on some of these lessons in my post on what COVID-19 can teach us about making a difference), I want to focus this two-part post on the good things I can extract from this global tragedy on a personal level. This post will focus on what I learned, or what was reinforced for me, about making a difference. My next post will focus on the lessons I absorbed about finding things to enjoy during dark times.

Lesson #1: It’s important for me to stay home when I’m sick.

I mentioned this in a post about sick leave early in the pandemic. I’ve gone to work sick in the past, and now I see how serious the consequences can be. In early 2019, as a major work event approached, I came down with something that primarily consisted of a bad cough. I could have accomplished my work at home, but I chose to go into the office. I believed I’d be more effective there, and I wanted to demonstrate that I wasn’t slacking off.

The following week, one of my coworkers had the same cough I’d had. I apologized for coming in sick, and she graciously told me, “Oh, it’s going around. I could have gotten it anywhere.” While it’s true she didn’t necessarily get it from me, I certainly didn’t reduce her exposure by coming in sick.

Now that I’ve worked remotely for more than a year, it’s clear that I don’t need to be in an office to be effective. I also don’t need to prove anything by being bodily present. My productivity speaks for itself. I’ve promised myself after the pandemic I will no longer come into the office sick. I hope that for many of us this will be a cultural change on both an individual and organizational level.

Lesson #2: My choices really do affect others.

Ever feel insignificant, like nothing you do really matters? There’s nothing like a pandemic to show the ripple effect of individual actions. A wedding in Maine resulted in at least 178 COVID-19 cases, including seven deaths. When we make choices that take the welfare of others into consideration — such as wearing a mask or getting vaccinated — we really can make a difference.

Lesson #3: Driving less matters.

As I mentioned in my early-pandemic post, there was a significant decrease in carbon emissions last year due to the shutdowns. After the pandemic I will be driving more, but I hope I can keep in mind how driving impacts the environment. I want to drive less than I used to in “normal” times. Can I establish a habit of not driving at all one day a week? How else can I limit my driving compared to what I did in the past?

Lesson #4: Little things can make a big difference.

I’ve said this one almost word-for-word before, but I’m continually reminded of how we don’t need to do newsworthy things to make a difference. Sometimes a card from a friend has been enough to make my day.

Likewise, a recent encounter in a grocery store reminded me of the importance of choosing kindness. In this particular case, a bag of kale was on the floor. I saw it and maneuvered around it. I can’t explain why I didn’t pick it up. I’ve picked up fallen items in the past, but this time seeing something on the floor somehow didn’t sink into my brain as a task to take care of. It was simply an obstacle on my way to the produce.

A woman behind me asked me, “Excuse me, did you knock this over?” When I let said “no,” she replied, sounding very annoyed, “Well, you could have picked it up.”

She was right. I could have — and should have — picked it up. But I was hurt by the anger she directed at me. I responded with an offended “sorry,” followed up with a muttered, “But you could be kinder.” Then I remembered what I’d recently written about hitting the pandemic wall. While I didn’t like how she lashed out at me, I realized that maybe she was having a difficult day. Mentally excusing her helped me not carry my annoyance with me during the day, and it reminded me of how important it is to treat people with kindness.

What good things are you taking from this pandemic that you will use to make a difference?

Even before the pandemic, terms like “compassion fatigue” and “caregiver burnout” were used to describe caregivers who had reached a point of exhaustion. These people were physically, mentally, and/or emotionally depleted and had nothing left to give.

It may be that virtually all of us are at that point a year into the pandemic. In December, a tweet circulated describing this moment in time as a situation in which “everyone needs more than anyone can give right now.” In the past few weeks, several articles have been written about “hitting the pandemic wall.” We all need love and care at the very time when many of us are reaching the point of pandemic exhaustion.

What do you do if you believe that you are called to a life of loving others and making a difference, but all you want to do is crawl into bed and stay there until the pandemic is over?

Here’s how you can keep caring for others, even when you feel like you have nothing left to give

Take care of yourself.

I’ve written about this before. Self-care helps provide us with the fuel we need to care for others. Right now, it’s more important than ever to make self-care a priority. Some of that self-care comes from tasks that we may not feel like doing right now, like exercising. Those things really do help, but it’s important we not beat ourselves up over our failures. You can make yourself go to bed, but you can’t make yourself sleep. We need to be gentle with ourselves and focus on what we can manage. During a recent check-up, I was told that my triglycerides are too high. It’s easier for me to try to eat more salads than fewer sweets right now, so that’s how I’m handling it.

Don’t try to do everything.

Remember: “Everyone needs more than anyone can give right now.” Our friends and family may be sad, or angry, or both. We can listen to them and love them and encourage them to get professional help if possible, but we can’t fix them. That’s always true — whether or not there’s a pandemic — but for those of us who try to fix things for folks, there’s no better time than now to learn that we don’t have that kind of power.

Set small goals.

While we may not have the energy to give as much as we used to, we can still make a difference by setting small, achievable goals. Little acts matter. I’ve been touched by simple things like a card in the mail or a walk with a friend. If we all set a goal to do one small act of compassion every day — or just a few each week — we can make the world a better place, even during a pandemic.

If you have daily caregiving responsibilities, don’t feel like you have to add more on top of that. You already may be doing all that you can manage (or you may feel in over your head!).

Walk away.

I confess that I’m easily annoyed by people who ignore mask laws and store rules about wearing masks. I’m of two minds about this. Part of me thinks that if we just look the other way when people endanger others by refusing to wear a mask, we’re encouraging them to continue to do so. But I also know that emotions are running high right now. The better approach is probably to walk away. That can apply to all sorts of situations beyond frustrations with anti-maskers.

There are times when we shouldn’t walk away. If we witness someone being harassed because of their race, ignoring the situation supports the harassment. But often choosing not to confront someone is excellent self-care and a compassionate response to the person who is irritating you… not to mention the people around you.