** I wrote this essay back in 1998 or 1999, but I think its a great reminder of how we can all play a part in whatever happens in our future.
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I like to think of each person’s life as one bucket full of the huge sea of humanity. We each have just this one portion to be responsible for, and it’s our purpose in life to keep our share as unpolluted as possible.
We need to keep out as many pollutants as we can from our share of this vast sea; pollutants such as hatred, jealousy, greed, bigotry, anger, abuse, spite, pettiness, dishonesty and cruelty. And the challenge is that these things are out there everywhere and if we don’t keep our guard up against them, every now and then we’ll notice a little pollution in our life. Maybe we’ll notice ourselves gossiping about a friend or neighbor or ranting about government leaders or getting despondent about crime or other acts of hatred rather than focusing on what we can do, personally, to affect “the whole”.
Fortunately, there are as many things we can ADD to our share of life that are ANTI-pollutants: truth, kindness, humor, beauty, good-health, reverence, generosity, positive attitude. And if we make an effort to add as many of these good qualities as we can, eventually we’ll see them neutralizing and cleansing out the pollutants.
See, the thing is, we’re all just a small portion of the same sea. Whatever we do with our share affects everyone else. You can’t pollute (or purify) one part of the sea of humanity without affecting it all.
It’s a pretty simplistic theory. Certainly not scientific in any way. It’s my own spiritual view of things that I have developed after realizing that whenever my life seemed really horrible and painful and polluted, that it was usually something that I had let into my life myself. And that no matter how innocent or isolated my actions seemed, when I allowed my own life to get to that state, it also began to affect the lives of those around me.
So when I wake up in the morning, I know what my purpose is for the day. It’s not to save the world or be the next Mother Theresa or develop a cure for cancer. It’s just to take care of my own share of this sea. I can stay positive and optimistic and strong. I can be kind and generous and nurturing.
Every action I take every day is my own drop in the bucket in the sea of humanity. My meaning and purpose are to do what I can to not pollute my share.
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