
Is making a difference possible?
Asking myself the question, “Is making a difference even possible?” brings to my mind a quote (paraphrased here) by Marian Wright Edelman, Founder of the Children’s Defense Fund:
“The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.”
Is it really possible to live in such a way that I make a difference?
I sometimes think the scale of my life, within the vast scope of life on Earth, feels miniscule and inconsequential. It can sometimes feel as if, what difference does it make what I do? Hardly anyone knows who I am? Who is really paying attention to how I live and what I do?
Is making a difference really possible?
My answer to those questions is that I’m responsible to myself to live consistent with what I hold most dear.
What I hold most dear is to live with care and with love.
The best way to make a difference might be to pay attention to how I live.
In contrast to recognizing what I hold most dear or value in life is a phrase that is sometimes used, “I feel like an impostor.” It’s even referred to as “impostor syndrome.” The phrase is expressed when a person feels as if they are fooling others and are not as qualified, educated or confident as they appear. To feel like an impostor is soul-twisting and uncomfortable. Being aware of what I find most meaningful in life is a consequence of being honest with myself.
I don’t want to live like an impostor, in a falsehood I create. Instead, I want to live in the world as it is and as I am. I want to be aware of who I am so that I can participate and live life wholeheartedly. There is no need to be perfect to live an authentic, whole-hearted life. I need to be honest and committed to what I value.
Making a difference is important to me.
What does it take to live consistently with what I hold dear?
Living consistent with what I hold most dear takes time, in fact, it takes a conscious choice and effort every day. Does that sound like a lot of work? Well, it does, but it isn’t a work that is back breaking or ponderous. In fact, it’s an effort that brings a sense of freedom and possibility. In my life experience, that effort creates feelings of well-being for me and for others.
Does what I do in the privacy of my home affect others?
In the U.S., individuality and doing what I want to do to get ahead are woven into the social fabric of everyday life. Behind the closed doors of my home no one knows what I do and how I live. Here are a few examples. If I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, what difference does it make? In my experience, feelings and moods can be contagious. My state of mind can affect the people I live with. My bad mood, communicated in my impatience or self-preoccupation can bring another person down. As a result, people in the house can feel irritable and can leave for work mulling over hurt feelings and discontents. What difference does my mood make? Does it change the world? No, but how I live ripples out and can affect others.

Again, no one else knows how I live behind the closed doors of my home. But I know. For me, I don’t feel a sense of well-being when I affect others with my bad mood. I feel at odds with myself when I don’t live in accordance with what I value most deeply. What I value most deeply is to live with care and with love. The dissonance between how I want to live and how I actually live can serve as an awakening. An awakening felt as recognizing that I need and want to change some of my habitual thoughts and actions so that I can live in accordance with my longing to love and to care. The call to change how I act is not a moral imperative. Longing to change and expand my capacity to love comes from the center of my soul.
How does individual action affect the larger world?
Can I as one individual stop the hunger of people all over the Earth? No, but I can keep in my thoughts and heart that starving people exist. One approach is that I can luxuriate in the plethora of food available to me. Or even if no one else knows what I do, I can take what I need, and that’s enough.
Can I as one individual stop war and bring peace to the world? No, but I can remember that there are families like mine that have lost their homes and loved ones to war. In my own life, I can pay attention to how I respond to conflict with others. Do I withdraw and judge or do I reach out and make an effort to listen to opinions not my own? Does my individual behavior stop war? Of course not. But at least the way I respond to others doesn’t add to the tension in the world.
Are my individual actions enough? I don’t think so. My actions are small.
But there are many examples of how individual actions joined with the actions of other individuals can make a difference to the larger world. Examples such as how individuals affected each other during the pandemic by wearing masks or not; to taking time to recycle or not; to whether differences in beliefs and opinions are treated as barriers to each other or as challenges to work through and learn from others. Many individual actions joined together add up and can make a difference to the whole.
How can I be sure of what I hold most dear?
There are probably many different answers to that question. I can only answer from my own experience. For me, meditation is a means of being clear in myself about what I value most in life. I find the practice of meditation is like a mirror. Not a typical mirror that reflects back my physical appearance, but a special mirror that reflects back who and how I am, and also reflects back the possibilities I long and reach for, but are yet to be realized.
Meditation can seem mysterious. What do I do?
Be open and willing to try something new. It’s helpful to learn from someone you know and trust who is an experienced meditator. There are apps that provide different forms of meditation. These can be helpful. And also learning from a person who has experience with meditation can be a guide to a new meditator’s efforts. Being able to talk with others and ask questions about meditation can be supportive.
Meditation can provide the opportunity to take 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes each day to make time to absent yourself from all the activity, hurry and noise of daily life, and to create a space of quiet where you can slow down, stop, hear yourself think and feel. Thoughts don’t stop instantly, but if you stay in a space of quiet, thoughts begin to slow. When you’re able to hear yourself think and feel, you may become aware of aspects of yourself where you can learn and change and grow.

Meditation is a chance to quiet the noise of my mind.
Meditation as a slowing down is a chance to quiet the noise and static that goes on in my head. For me, meditation is opening to an awareness of the hard to name, difficult to describe, but felt experience of a source that infuses life with something so much greater than a single individual. Here’s how I connect to that source. As I learned discursive or inner dialogue practice of meditation, I invoke the Divine Mother. The invocation puts me in a different state of mind. An invocation isn’t the usual thing I do. Invocation means I move from the habitual to what can be discovered.
An invocation is a calling out to, a reaching toward the something that is hard to name. An invocation is not the same as confiding in a close friend or talking to a therapist. In meditation, I am the only person in the room (unless I’m meditating in a group.) I am alone with myself. I sit behind a closed door, most often in the same chair in the same room. When I invoke the Divine Mother, I give voice to my soul as I reach toward what I don’t already know.
In meditation I experience “the world is so big and my boat is so small,” but I’m not frightened or paralyzed by the bigness. I feel held. I am in the small space of the life I have been given within that bigness. In a sense, as I invoke the Divine – or whatever you choose to call it- before that largeness, I feel I’m in a sacred space where I can be quiet and hear my deepest thoughts and feelings. Words come from my heart, not from my head.
Caring as a overarching orientation to how I live
I long to live with caring and with love. I would say the opposite of caring is indifference. What does indifference mean? The simplest explanation is it means not to care. As I meditate, I learn about myself and others. As I sit in the quiet in the presence of the Divine, I look into the unique mirror of meditation where I reflect on real-life actions and interactions and am open to see how I actually live.
Can meditation deepen a feeling of caring?
In the practice of meditation, I sit with myself before the Divine. That orientation affects not only meditation, but how I live. What does it mean to sit before the Divine? For me that means I seek to open myself before a realm of authenticity, so that I am able to see beneath filters of conditioning and familiar narratives that play in my thoughts. In meditation, I find an entrance into learning and discovery in order to understand myself, what it means to be human, and how I am connected to the larger fabric of life.
Is it possible to live with love and caring?
Descriptions, like this one, can sound grand because they are “big ideas.” But here is an example of a meditation that I hope illustrates how that translates into concrete actions that can be actualized. For example, I meditate about seeing without judgment what goes on in my thoughts. In the quiet of meditation, I see myself in the real-life situation of being in a meeting with other people. As others speak, I recognize that sometimes I have feelings that measure myself against others. Or I can feel impatient or frustrated with what others say. In the openness of meditation, those feelings and thoughts are seen and not judged.
I open to my feelings as human thoughts and feelings that are not unique to me but are kindred to those of others. Meditating about what goes on in the inner workings of my mind and heart leads to feelings of connection, belonging to a larger whole. A natural consequence of that understanding is the deepening of love and caring.
Small instances of caring can make a big difference
Recently, I have started doing one–thousand–piece jigsaw puzzles. I started this activity when I was recovering from a broken elbow. The fracture limited what I was able to do. Since then, on occasion, I’ll begin another puzzle. I just completed the puzzle of a beautifully illustrated map of Cape Cod. Sadly, three pieces were missing. This was disappointing because I had asked my husband if he could hodge-podge (glue) the puzzle when it was completed so that it could be a picture to be framed and hung on the wall.

I showed my husband the spaces created by the 3 missing pieces. I said I didn’t think we could glue it together as a picture. The missing pieces would detract from the whole. My husband said no problem, he could make pieces to fill the spaces. Jigsaw puzzle pieces are quite small. He is a wood carver, and in no time, he made the pieces to complete the puzzle.
Simple acts of kindness can make a difference
Granted, this is a small, almost inconsequential action. However, it is an example of an action one person took to help another because he cared enough to make the effort. Does making puzzle pieces change the world or make a large impact on the lives of many others? No. But caring is contagious. He communicated caring and that helped me. His caring multiplied by affecting me.
His action was a way of making a difference.
Does how I live make a difference?
An anecdote may help to answer that question. I attended Loyola University in Chicago, so I pay attention to their basketball team. Loyola University undergraduate program in the area where we live has a men’s basketball team. The ages of the players on the team are between 18 or 19 years old and in their young twenties. The staunchest, most loyal supporter of their team is Sister Jean, a 105 year-old woman. She attends almost every game. Cheering the team on gives them moral support. She believes in these young men. Sister Jean is beloved by team members, Loyola undergraduates, and the community at large.
Why would a 105-year-old woman be so involved with a college sports team? I think she probably enjoys basketball, but more importantly, she cares about the team. She believes in them. Her love, caring and enthusiasm are contagious. Do the actions of Sister Jean change the world? In my opinion, yes. Her actions change the small slice of the world she inhabits. Sister Jean’s actions make me wonder what if everybody filled their small slice of the world with caring? It seems to me that when caring is reinforced by positive commitment and action, it makes a difference.
Making a difference matters.
About the Author(s)
Allegra Magrisso is a social worker, therapist, long time meditator, mother and grandmother.