“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

This week’s way to make a difference is one of the more difficult ones — at least, it is for me. But clearing space in your life is among the best things you can do if you want to change the world. Our culture encourages us to be always busy, always consuming, so that we have no time, money, or energy to spend on the things that really matter. We need to take back our lives.

Simplifying gives us “margin,” as Dr. Richard Swenson puts it, and it is out of this margin that we can make our contributions to the world. As an added benefit, scaling back on what we consume allows us to tread more lightly on the earth. If you’re concerned about the planet, embracing simplicity can be a powerful way to make a difference.

There are many ways to simplify your life. You probably know better than anyone else what you need to tackle. What stresses you out? What commitments on your calendar do you dread? What do you own that doesn’t bring you joy? What expenses do you have that you’d love to cut if you could? Start with those things. You may not be able to eliminate them completely, but with creativity and commitment to change, you can probably improve things.

I also recommend listening to your friends and family members if they point out ways you could cut back. Sometimes it’s easy to see how a friend can reduce his or her stress but be completely blind to the things in your own life that are dragging you down. One of my friends was worn out with shuttling his kids from one activity to the next, but he felt that all the things they did were very important and couldn’t imagine eliminating any of them. From my perspective it was clear that the best thing he could choose for his children would be to cancel some of their commitments and, instead, be a less-stressed dad who had more time to spend just hanging out with them.

At the same time, I was overcommitting myself. I complained on Facebook about having something to do every evening of a certain week. My sister responded, “Cut one of those things out.” I didn’t follow her advice at the time, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. As a result, I’ve begun working hard to schedule no more than three evening activities Monday through Friday.

I’ve learned from experience that simplifying your life may require some trial and error before you find something that works for you. I liked the idea of developing a sort of “uniform,” so that I wouldn’t have to think about clothes, though I didn’t want to be as extreme as Steve Jobs. I decided to wear black pants to work and jeans on the weekend, with a limited number of seasonally appropriate tops to go with them. After some diet and exercise changes, I found that my wardrobe seemed to consist only of clown pants, all which had to be altered or replaced. I’m now considering a uniform that is more “dress-based,” at least on work days.

If you are eager to join me in the pursuit of a simpler life, there are some excellent resources to support you on your journey.

Leo Babauta’s blog, Zen Habits, is possibly the best site there is on this subject. Babauta deals with topics ranging from decluttering and exercise to establishing habits and ending procrastination. I cannot recommend his blog highly enough. As the name implies, Zen Habits is influenced, in part, by Zen Buddhism, but please don’t reject it because you’re not Buddhist. The posts speak to anyone who is interested in simplicity.

Another excellent blog is Be More With Less by Courtney Carver. Her posts include practical lists on ways to simplify your life. She also writes thoughtful essays on what’s truly important, such as her recent post, “Let’s Linger Longer and Fall in Love.”

I’ve gained a lot from reading Dr. Richard Swenson’s books Margin and The Overload Syndrome. He writes from a Christian perspective, but just as I encourage everyone to read the Zen Habits blog, I also believe that anyone can find value from these books. Swenson writes a lot about stress and limits, but he goes beyond the general to offer several practical “prescriptions” for building margin into all aspects of your life.

If there are other resources for simplicity that you love, please share them!

I know. Donating blood is an obvious way to make a difference. But many of us who are qualified to donate, don’t, because we’re afraid. I know this, because I used to let my own fear of needles hold me back. I can’t even look when I get a shot, so there was no way I was going to let someone stick a needle in me to take a pint of my blood!

Through much of my 20s, I didn’t meet the weight limit for donating blood, giving me a convenient excuse. But after I had a baby and turned 30, I stayed over the 110 lb. minimum, so I had to face the fact that I wasn’t donating because I was afraid.

Then came September 11. In the aftermath, I wanted to do something constructive. The first thing that occurred to me was to become a blood donor.

It wasn’t bad at all. I didn’t even feel faint.

There are other reasons people choose not to donate blood besides fear, of course. I know someone who got tired of being deferred for low iron and finally asked the Red Cross to stop calling her. But I’ve had many people tell me that they don’t like needles or are afraid of how they will feel after donating. After overcoming my own fear, I have a message for those of you are letting fear hold you back:

Donating blood is sort of a treat!

Yes, there’s the great feeling you get after having done something that saves lives. This was especially true for me the night I had someone stop me when she saw my post-donation “be nice to me” sticker. She wanted to thank me, because she had once needed a transfusion. When you meet someone who has benefited from a blood donation, the good that you’ve done really hits home.

But when I say that donating blood is a treat, I’m not talking about the feeling of having done something nice for someone else. I’m talking about how relaxing the experience can be.

If you feel like you’re trying to keep too many balls in the air — a job, parenting, caring for elderly parents, volunteer work, a side gig — the notion of being forced to relax can be a beautiful thing, so much so that some people actually fantasize about being laid up in the hospital for a while. Donating blood is a mini vacation from your day-to-day responsibilities. For roughly an hour — from the time you check in at the front desk to the time you walk out the door — you have time to just be with few demands. You’ll have to read some literature and answer some questions (you can take care of that ahead of time with the Rapid Pass system if you donate through the American Red Cross). You’ll get a finger prick or two (my least favorite part), and they’ll take your temperature, pulse, and blood pressure. If all turns out well, they will escort you to what you can think of as your own chaise lounge — it’s elevated and not plush, but you can just stretch out your legs, lean back, and give them an arm. You don’t have to watch. I like to bring a book. You could watch videos on your phone or daydream. You could even bring along a friend to donate with you and spend the time chatting.

Following your donation, you will be asked to sit in the canteen, drink a beverage, and, if you wish, eat a snack. As I mentioned, you will be given a sticker instructing others to be nice to you, and you will be told not to lift anything heavy for the rest of the day. “Dear, could you please carry the laundry basket upstairs for me? I’m not supposed to lift heavy things today.”

In the interest of complete truthfulness, I felt slightly dizzy once when I completed a donation. It had never happened before, and it has never happened since. It really wasn’t bad, and the staff made sure I was okay before they let me get up. I’ve seen one other person who did not feel well after her first donation. She was well attended to and did not faint. I have one friend who actually did faint after donating. She was told that she would have to donate in a hospital in the future, but a phone call to the Red Cross has since debunked that misinformation; she is welcome to donate at a Red Cross blood donation center. Feeling faint once does not mean that you will feel faint again; sometimes, the faintness occurs because of your physical condition when you gave blood, such as being dehydrated.

If you, like me, dislike needles, I’d like to encourage you to reframe blood donations. Think of donating as “me time.” Let other people take care of things for a while; just sit back, put your feet up, and rest, knowing that you have an excuse: You’re doing a great deal of good. And after you’re done, eat your snack guilt-free.

I host anti-slavery chocolate parties, and they always begin with a quiz on modern-day slavery. At the end of the quiz, I ask people if they are overwhelmed. Slavery can be overwhelming once you realize how many of the goods and services you consume may have been provided by slaves: chocolate, tomatoes, shrimp, cotton, gold, rugs, smartphones, manicures and more. How can you completely eliminate slave-produced goods and services from your life?

And beyond slavery, what can we do about climate change, plastic in the oceans, world hunger, racism, sexism, violence?

I tell people to think of each of these problems as an elephant. We have a herd of elephantine problems to tackle. If you try to tackle the whole herd at once, you will never succeed. We need to remember that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. I encourage the people who attend my parties to figure out their first bite — perhaps replacing conventional candy bars with fair-trade bars — and to focus on that bite before taking another.

The fact is, not one of us is God. Not one of us can fix all of the world’s problems. Trying to do so will only lead to overwhelm and paralysis.

I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. — Edward Everett Hale

In my weekly “Make a Difference” blog entries, I’m going to mention many ways to make a difference, because there are many, many things we can do. These entries are not a checklist. The goal isn’t perfection, because perfection isn’t attainable, and striving for perfection is a sure recipe for burnout. The goal is simply for each of us to do what we can.

So stop trying to do everything. Stop exhausting yourself by carrying the woes of the world on your shoulders. They are not yours to carry. Instead, look for what one thing you need to do right now, and when you have accomplished that one thing, then you can think about what to tackle next.

You can’t make a difference if you get so overwhelmed that you give up.