Knowing you count for something is an incredibly powerful feeling.  Knowing that you are needed, important, and that you make a difference gives meaning to your life.  Victor Frankl discovered meaning in a concentration camp.  Making something good out of something bad even in tiny ways is something you can do every day.

I don’t believe in crusades. When I say “crusades” I’m talking about mass movements or organizations out to change the world, the city, or the neighborhood. Crusades and crusaders usually become an end in themselves. Even if they don’t, the lion’s share of time and effort still go to the crusade itself and not to the objective of the crusade. I’m not saying there are not good organizations out there because there are, but no crusade will ever match the power of individual human action.

“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.” — William James

Vin Miller and his Natural Bias blog on health mean more to me than all the narcissistic braying by the POTUS and the D.C. crowd on health care. When you pick up the groceries on the sidewalk that spilled when your elderly neighbor dropped the grocery bag, you are doing more than the AARP organization that enriches itself by preying on the fears of its elderly members. If you own one acre of wild land and you let it be, you are doing more than Al Gore who lives in a 20,000 sq ft. 8-bathroom carbon sucking behemoth and jets all over the world talking about global warming.

One of the readers of this blog sent me an email saying only the following: “Yours is by far the best blog on the internet, should be required reading in this crazy world.” That one sentence meant more to me than anything ever said in a 25-year career in corporate slavery.

As long as there is somebody who needs something and you are doing something about it, you are making a difference. Your life thereby gains meaning and purpose. You don’t need to change the world and you don’t need to feed your ego like crusaders and celebrities. You can make more of a difference by engaging in small little acts of kindness towards your fellow human beings.

Here are some links on ideas for small acts of kindness.  I know there are a lot more out there and if you or you know of someone who has made such a list, put the URL in the comments and I will add it to the list below.

Not So Random Random Acts of Kindness
Index of Kindness Ideas
29 Ways to Carry Out Random Acts of Kindness Every Day

What do you think? Leave a comment below.