Humans are social beings. We seek connection. In one way or another, we want to be accepted. There are so many ways to ask for it, so many passages to reach it.
Some of us are extroverts, have lots of friends, lots of meetings to plan and coffees to drink with different people on a daily basis.
Some of us have a small circle of people, with a deep, strong connection that binds us.
Some of us are seemingly independent, brave, strong and powerful, but even then, there is that quiet, secret wish – to find someone who will walk with us. We unknowingly search for someone who will be here. Who will warn us if we start to lose our way. Who will understand. For someone who will say: “It may not be my problem, but it is a problem to someone I deeply care about. I will do everything within my power to make it better.”
To me, vulnerability shown through these gentle acts of caring and giving is one of the most beautiful and most precious things in human nature.
But it doesn’t apply solely to human relationships.
People with a high sense of righteousness, altruism and responsibility show it in many ways.
Some of them would rather do their busy colleague’s part of the job than take a coffee break because it feels right. Some of them would clean the room after their siblings because it feels right. It doesn’t matter if it was their task in the first place. They do things not because they must, but because they have to. And there is a great difference between these two. They feel it as the right thing to do.
“It’s not my garbage but it’s my planet” is a great example of that same altruism and responsibility towards our home.
We care about our rooms, apartments, houses, cottages, and narrow space around them – staircases and gardens and yards, yet our planet is our home more than anything. When we move from one place to another, we are still on the same planet. Until today, it has been our only permanent home.
If we share our bedroom with one roommate or one sibling, we have a 50% chance to be responsible for the order in that room. But if we share our home with 7,7 billion people, why are we responsible for the order when our chance to be responsible for any kind of cleanliness on our planet is close to zero?
That gives us a sense of unconcern – even if we do something, who will see the difference? Some may think that any tiny deed, even if it is good, after all becomes – negligible.
It is an easy way of thinking, and it can give us an excuse for not doing anything. But it is a wrong way of thinking, too. We mustn’t let ourselves become – or stay – passive and indolent.
Everybody wants to have an impact, and yet, we forget that at first, it doesn’t have to be spectacular, or well-known, or global.
We forget that we have to be persistent in our acts and to childishly believe in them.