Thinking Small Enough

Is there anyone that you want to help? Do you need help yourself? This blog post might be for you.

Even before I was diagnosed, I had the thought about how the smallest of things can matter. I had set up a blog called "Dollar Difference" with the thought in mind that how you "eat an elephant" one bite at a time. The idea was to post things that you could do that would make a difference for another that cost $1, or less.

Well. That blog hasn't been updated in a very long time. I am not even sure it ever really impacted anyone or anything.

I think we often have difficulty thinking small enough. We see a big hole and think there is absolutely any way one drop of anything is going to have any impact.

The fact is that one small drop can be added to another and another and another to the point that that hole could be overflowing. But instead of viewing what could come, we are either busy looking at that gaping hole or avoiding it.

Since being diagnosed with cancer the whole idea of $1 making a difference has taken on extra special significance. As I often express, if 500 people gave me $1, it would be almost insignificant to them, but it would be HUGE to me.

Now I am in a contest that depends on votes. The leader has about 1500 votes. Me? Almost 200. There is a pretty big gap. I have wondered if I should tell people about the gap, wondering if they might see it, and think, "What's the point?" and then not do anything.

As I think about this, I wonder if it would be a great way to show others how "1" could make a difference. If I can come from behind in a big way there might be something valuable that others could get from it. There is (perhaps you've noticed?) a double meaning with "1." There is the one as a quantity of contribution, and there is one that is that person that makes that contribution.

One person, you, can really make a difference for another. The key is you just have to want to. You have to quiet that inner voice that judges everything. You have to listen more to your heart than your head. Logic is a great saboteur.

If I listened to logic, I would never have even bothered with the contest. Quite frankly after how things went - really, didn't go - with it last year, logic talked me out of it before it ever began. It took a couple of other someones to have me say, "what the heck?" and then, perhaps, ironically, logically calculate that winning was not so out of reach that it didn't make sense to try.

If you want to help someone, but think you can't, my guess is...you are not thinking small enough.