A Drop in the Bucket

Perhaps it is the pandemic blues, or possibly general instability in my life as I enter my late 20s with a college degree and no @!#$-ing clue what I am doing with my life... regardless I have recently been reminiscing on my not so distant childhood and the ways in which I decided to spend my free time versus how I spend my free time now. As we are all experiencing a global trauma, it goes without saying that I have been in a bit of a funk, walking around with a nimbus overhead, essentially; a bit depressed. I find myself perusing Youtube midday to find some tips on growing roma tomatoes and then all of a sudden it’s five hours later and I am watching a random person discuss a nutritionist's perspective of a models’ “what I eat in a day” video. It is a bit nauseating and dare I say disappointing to see how post-college life is treating me compared to my once hyper driven self. Not to toot my own horn, but I feel as though much of my childhood was spent engaging in relatively selfless acts, without thought or hesitation. I fill my schedule with one activity after another, my to do list is always growing, and I find myself always looking for larger mountains to conquer. When I have free time, I try to find ways to better myself of my community. Lately, being locked in doors, I have deeply focused on my Yoga practice and even became a certified instructor so that I could spread peace and joy over zoom to my friends and family.

My tenacity and conviction are not entirely selfless though, I tend to take part in ways that essentially make me feel better about myself. The definition of a perfectionist, I have never been able to believe anything I do or anything I create is good enough. I seek others to provide me with that validation in my so called selfless acts. This is a hard reality to face, but I do believe others will be able to relate to this feeling. I consider myself a good and genuine person, but unfortunately I am not immune to vanity. I want people to think of me as special and worth something more than I think of myself. Struggling constantly with my desire to be good and my desire to be seen as good, I tend to get a little bit too in my head. With all of the feats of human greatness thrust upon me every time I open my phone, my little, genuine acts of kindness pale in comparison. I focus on what I could have done rather than what I have done, ways I could help that did not even cross my mind rather than what did, things I should be able to do rather than things I can and should do. I remember all of the terrible, the embarrassing, and the downright sad parts of my life, and instead idolize others good deeds and wish for the same rather than help in ways that make me happy. I want to return to a time when I did not compare myself to others so harshly, and when I think about it not only was I happier, I was more active in helping my community. Upon recollection, there are so many things that I am proud of doing that it brings me a little bit of joy during these days indoors.

Donating money could be seen as the easiest form of involvement, some may even call it a cop out. The image of a woman crying on the phone to the ASPCA giving her one time five dollar donation as she pets her pure bread poodle shipped out from a farm in Indiana, does not entirely inspire confidence in this so called selfless act. Celebrities being photographed in Africa with a comically large check with some incomprehensible monetary value written in large letters, with the words "for clean water" seems more like a photo op. That is not to say these are not good deeds, but I do see how someone can roll their ideas at the thought. Instead, I challenge my inner critic to see these scenarios differently, as it could be a scene in which an awkward prepubescent teen works all summer for a small payout to a larger issue.

Growing up I lived across the street from a golf course, which was what I considered my very own well kept playground in the evenings. We would kick a soccer ball, play hide and seek, search for lost golf balls, engage in general shenanigans, etcetera etcetera. This lovely glorified lawn would transform from my nighttime playground to one of my first money making ventures as well. Once a day or so a bad shot would end up either on the roof of my childhood home or in the backyard. This led to my collection of a random assortment of golf balls, which I knew nothing about. However, I would save them up, clean them until they sparkled, and find a nice display bucket for my product. Then, when I had enough to fill a bucket, I would make a “50 cents per ball” sign with all the flourishes, and stir up a giant pitcher of country crock pink lemonade. I'd take my confident, gaucho wearing, eleven year old self and set up my first small business on the tee box of the eighth hole. Strategically, this was fairly intelligent strategy for a young business mogul. Presumably these golfers had lost a couple of balls by the eighth hole, and could be parched about halfway through their round - either from walking or from drinking beer - simply a case of supply and demand in my eyes, business. Granted, at the time I didn’t know a Titleist from a Kirkland brand ball so many of them probably got away with a couple of discounted balls, but they were free to me anyway. After spending an entire summer of Saturdays and Sundays out on the course, grinding away at our stand (probably being more of a nuisance then we cared to realize at the time), my friends and I had cumulatively brought in close to a thousand dollars. As you can probably imagine, we were pretty jazzed about our entrepreneurial endeavors. As the golf course may have hinted at - my friends and I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood. As kids, we really did not need to want for much. We were not spoiled rotten, nor could any of us be considered trust fund babies, but we had food and video games and were generally contented with the material things we had. Thus proved an interesting dilemma of how to spend the money or what to spend it on. Since this was a joint effort, it was only reasonable to divide it equally. Or, there was an idea floated that we could spend it on an experience all together. As a baby thespian, I voted we buy tickets to see Phantom of the Opera at the Orpheum in San Francisco however that idea was quickly shot down. Somewhere down the line we all realized that we were in middle school and thus we really did not have a need for that money. Collectively, we decided that there was something or someone else that definitely needed the money more than we did. On the California coast, the importance of nature and naturalism is engrained into our public school system, and we were inevitably heavily influenced by this desire to save the planet. We mulled over a variety of great options, but soon decided that we were going to save the Rainforest, or at least try to.

In the end, we all bought a scoop of ice cream and donated the rest of the money to a family friend who was buying acres of land in the Rainforest in order to transform that land into a nature preserve. Thinking back on this, I am sure the money we donated was a drop in the water bucket that was being collected for this project. But it did not matter one bit to us, we felt so good just to be a part of something that would be bettering our world. This one act ultimately led to a multitude of other ways I found myself involved in my community or taking part in activism. I have volunteered for the local no kill animal shelters, food banks, arts in public schools, beach clean ups, campus clean ups, and more. Even now, I take part in community volunteer projects and give what I can to the campaigns I believe in (not to get political but there are a lot of places and people that need support now more than ever). Not because I am or ever was forced to - but because I always remember how good it felt to sit with my friends and eat ice cream and feel like I contributed. That may be a selfish way of looking at it, but hey whatever gets you involved, it only takes that first step.

"A drop in the bucket" makes it seem so insignificant. A small fish in a large pond, but that fish is still an integral part of that ponds ecosystem. It reminds me of the butterfly effect - the idea that if you kill a butterfly in the past it could change the entire integrity of the future. Like Marty McFly when he returns to 1985 from 2015 and it has become "Biff City" because of his meddling with time travel. We tend to brush off our tiny successes, pretend that they mean nothing to us. But each individual drop of water together makes a bucket. No bucket of water is complete without a single droplet. Our tiny successes, our minuscule contributions make up our person. Perhaps it is the age of the internet that have made us only celebrate the larger achievements in our lives. I know, it is hard for me to scroll through Instagram and see others who have climbed mountains or built schools or completed PhD's, while my great accomplishment for the day was remembering to feed my sourdough starter. But I have to remind myself, to get where I am going I have to take the first step. And that first step may be making a choice.

Life happens, and that childhood innocence has been dampened by the cynicism of adulthood and the seemingly negative karmic energy of 2020, but I would like to find more of these small acts of kindness again. Society is so consumed by visibility and always striving to do more, be more, be bigger, give more, be grander, be more extravagant, etc etc. And while I truly believe it is important to be involved and be heard and spread the messages you are passionate about, I also feel that we can all benefit from tiny acts of selflessness on a daily basis. I think moving forward, performing small acts of kindness and sacrificing little unnecessary pleasures, will help us all feel a little bit better inside everyday. We don’t have to strive to be the best or do the best, but we can contribute each and everyday in our own special ways and I think that is good enough.