What does hope feel like? What does courage sound like? What does action look like? How do things get better?

All of you reading these words have loved someone, have done someone a kindness, have healed a wound, have taken on a challenge, have created something beautiful, and have enjoyed breathing the air of existence. Every moment you make a difference. – Random Acts of Kindness

You’re already making a difference

One of the greatest misconceptions that people live in is that they don’t really impact the lives of others. Volunteers who work with tough inner-city gang members can dispel this misconception in a few minutes through a powerful ritual called “strength bombardment,” Basically one gang member stands silently in the center of the gang, while the other members take turns telling him a) what they think his unique strengths are, and b) how he has impacted each of them in positive ways. It is not unusual to see even the toughest gang members break down and cry when they hear what their peers actually think of them.

It’s exciting and moving for all of us (not just gang members) to discover the power for good that we possess and have been exercising without even knowing it. You’ve touched people and known it. You’ve also touched people and may never know it.

Julia Butterfly Hill, the American environmentalist, wrote, “The question is not ‘Can you make a difference you want to make, during you life on this planet.”

Your life can be a path of coincidence, happenstance, and luck, or it can be a purposefully charted course to touch the lives of others and make the differences that only you can make in the world.