An editor of mine told me a story from his childhood on his grandparents’ farm in Iowa. The little boy, looking out over acres and acres of corn, asked his grandfather, “How are we going to shuck all that corn?” His grandfather said, “One row at a time.”
This, too, is how to improve the world. And we can start small.
Personally, I vow that I will frequently visit a children’s hospital and try to distract kids with stories, the funnier the better. I vow that I will phone every lonely person I know — and there are plenty — at least twice a week, just to chat and make them feel part of the living world. I vow to give alms to everyone who asks, and to those who don’t, and to stand up for the stupid and crazy, the stupider and crazier the better. I promise to keep an eye out for strays (cats, dogs and people) and bring them safety and comfort. I vow to see every wrong as a menace, every wound an opportunity.
What will you do — right now, this week, this month — to make a better world? Stage a protest. Send a letter to right a wrong, or to proffer friendship. (A thoughtful, sympathetic letter to a friend in sorrow or distress is a powerful thing.) Lend a hand. Offer a word of comfort or inspiration or support or love. Donate money or, most valuable of all, time. There are so many ways to move this world, right within reach.
The great beautiful irony of all this, of course, is that selflessness is not the opposite of self-improvement. Selflessness is self-improvement — the most meaningful and lasting kind.
Practice it, and you may just find that the New Year is, in fact, a step up from the last. You may find that, all at once, you look and feel better than you would have after any amount of dieting or exercise. Unburdened of ego. Lighter on your feet. Say! Haven’t you lost weight?
Practice it, and suddenly you will find that your little life has gotten big. Big life, grand life is like art. It is not done well unless the artist dreams expansively, ridiculously, by making a glorious Whitman-size fool of herself in seeking to enhance everything, cure every ill. Nothing less.
At an event a couple of months ago, someone asked me why I wrote something the way I did, and I found myself blurting out, “To save the world.” It was laughable, preposterous and true.
Roger Rosenblatt is the author, most recently, of “Cataract Blues: Running the Keyboard.”
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