My brain has been driving me crazy my whole life. I have one of those insufferable minds that is in constant motion, always working on some sort of thought whether I am conscious of it or not. Slowly these ideas tumble around my mind and sometimes they come out neatly polished and complete, other times they remain fragmented and barely graspable.

I’ve been struggling with the barely graspable a lot lately.

Around the first half of last year I was listening to the 5fm morning show on the radio while driving my husband to work. Gareth Cliff wasn’t there that day, it was some watered down male stand-in who for some unfathomable reason had chosen the topic of “things you would never eat”.  People called in with their answers to what they would never eat and a vague vegetarian pattern started developing. The conversation was dull and boring and not something that would normally hold my attention, until the female co-host remarked “what’s the point?” As in what is the point of not eating meat if everyone else just carries on eating meat anyway. Somehow this segued into what the point of every doing anything good was as she didn’t see that there was any use in any of it.

That idea has been pissing me off ever since.

Because that’s the whole problem with the entire world, isn’t it? Nothing counts. We are somehow made to believe that unless you do some major grandiose and self-sacrificing thing, that nothing you do actually does matter. I do it myself – and I’m pretty sure you do too.

Consider this:

I have a vegan friend who is especially radical in her ways. Now I admire her so much and her passion for her way of life is absolutely incredible. She uses and consumes absolutely no animal-related products whatsoever. She uses nothing tested on animals. She keeps herself informed of such things. And she is vocal as hell about it. If you watch her Facebook Timeline not a day goes by without several posts on animal cruelty. She is die hard when it comes to this and I cannot help but look up to her for it.

I have another friend who is trying to live as greenly as possible. She does the usuals of course – recycling, solar powered geysers, living off her garden, free range chickens etc. She is constantly looking for the next step to take – many of them even seem outright insane until you allow yourself to look at her reasons. She is an absolute inspiration in the way she lives.

But what happens when we are faced with such people? Immediately our brains go “but I can’t do that!” Never do we consider that it is possible that this inspiring life we look up to got that way by taking one small step and then adding another and another. Instead we look at the end result which seems an impossibility for our lives and so we do nothing. Suddenly the little bit of glass recycling that you do now and then doesn’t count. Suddenly nothing matters because it doesn’t compare to the largeness of someone else’s contribution. I can’t do that. I might as well not bother with anything. Sound familiar? Sure it does…

The thing is…it really isn’t like that. The little things DO count!  And I think most of us know and believe that if every person was brave enough to take all the little things seriously then a whole bunch of little things could very well be responsible for a change in the world. Naive? Perhaps. Impossible? Nothing is impossible…

I want to start. I want to start being one of those people who cares about the little things instead of being intimidated by the big things. Big things should inspire you – not drown you!  And I do believe that baby steps lead to bigger steps.

Do YOU have little things that you do? They don’t necessarily have to have anything to do with going green or with animals.

Do you do things that make the world a better place? Because I would really love it if you would share them with me…