 The Power of One
Sometimes, feeling sick and discouraged, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we each, as individuals, have the power to change the world.
Recently I have found that although I am one when I write an email, letter, or make a phone call, I am seeing an amazing change in policies which follow some of the suggestions or complaints I have made.
One suggestion was to a grocery store in my area which is very sensitive to public opinion when it comes to food. I pointed out that while I was happy with some of their recent changes (offering organic choices, making sure their private label milk and dairy products are made from milk with no added hormones) I wanted to see them support small farmers and farmers who grow local food, as much as possible. I asked them to make consumers aware through their ads of the importance of eating local foods. Today I saw their ad, and it said "___-grown, so it's closer to home." Now I may not have been the only person who sat down and wrote them a long email or letter on this subject, but I am sure I was part of the reason for this ad. It did not take me more than ten minutes to do this. Now I am seeing this change in this store. When I see the produce managers in my local store I tell them I will not buy green onions grown in Mexico (even the organic onions are coming from there and with the history of Mexican green onions, well I will do without if that is my only option). This is the way we as consumers can pressure change, one letter at a time. While doing so we can eat fresher foods and help local growers.
A few months ago I made a call to my bank which had started to print check registers in an extremely light grey and small print, putting everything in two languages to boot (guess what the other was, ha ha). First I said the print was too small. That not everyone has twenty twenty vision and that I expected to be able to read this in English which is the language of the country I happen to live in. (As it was I had to title each page myself so I could put things in the correct order and be able to read it.) Guess what? The new check registers are now in black print (English), larger print (English) and the other language is small grey print. So yes, we can influence things I believe if we only take that first step.
Yet another complaint was a phone call to a congressperson's office asking why letters I wrote were ignored by said person. I feel that even if a congressperson does not agree with a constituent they should acknowledge the letters which are written and discuss their views on an issue. I stated that I believed I was being ignored partially because of my gender and partially because of my viewpoint. I did not give my name on the phone or say what I had written about. Within two weeks I had a letter from this person. I expect the staff in my district was quite suddenly busy leafing through letters of every person so ignored for the past two years and that every person whose letters had been ignored suddenly received a reply. In my case the issue I raised was talked around (so I am correct in surmising there is not support there), but at least I felt as if I had a reply and was not invisible.
So I hope we all can see we do have some power to change things. That every day we can get up and we can look around and see what needs to be done. Sometimes it will be small, but looking outside ourselves I feel keeps us in touch with others. Even if we are sick and cannot get out that much, we can do some good in the world beyond our homes. Much of it I know is by the support and caring we all give to others here on the forum. I think there are a lot of beautiful people here.
best,
tcm
__________________
"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake." Victor Hugo, French dramatist, novelist, & poet (1802 - 1885) | 
October 3rd, 2007, 12:17 PM
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