What good can you do?
I went to bed a bit discouraged last night after thinking about the 36 senators who said they would aquit Donald Trump of his heinous, deadly abuse of power--if that happens, so many in the country will be discouraged and hurt. To allow a man, who clearly put himself and his own power, privilege, pleasure, and wealth ahead of his duty to the American people in ways that killed, injured, and terrorized people, vandalized and looted our amazing Capitol, and obstructed justice by impeding a free and fair electoral college vote certification is abhorable.
The American people were abused continuously for four years during Donald Trump's term. His hate speech, inhumanity, negligence, and self serving behaviors took us all down day after day. I hope those senators do some hard thinking because to let Trump off the hook for high crimes and misdemeanors is to damage our democracy in significant, dangerous ways. If they are faithful to their oaths of office to protect, preserve, and defend the United States Constitution, they will change their minds and do what is right--they will convict Donald Trump, and we will all be in a better place going forward.
And while the trial continues, and we are all taking note while busy with our own endeavor, I am thinking about the question, What good can you do? What can you do in your own sphere to make life better for yourself and others? How can you contribute?
Most of us wake up each morning with lists of positive activity to attend to--lots and lots of jobs we can do in our homes and greater communities to contribute. Some of those jobs are great and visible and others are small and invisible, whatever the size of the work you do or the visibility, what matters is that it is true to you and contributes to the greater good in some way.
Those investments of good work and contribution may have little current effect, and may contribute more to a change that will happen in five or ten years down the road, or the good you do may have immediate positive results. That too doesn't matter as much as the fact that your work is well directed toward betterment in significant ways.
Another way to do good, is to identify the bad possible, and avoid that--what habits, practices, investments, and ways you spend time are not positive, and contribute to less good in some ways? How can you change that behavior? What can you do instead that is better for you and others?
What good can you do? This is a great question to ponder.
For me, I keep a laundry list of such endeavor, and try to work at it as time and energy permits. I refer to that list often to review and revise as needed. I also try to establish the kind of routine that makes good work a mainstay of my days. Of course, there is always more I can do, and I can always improve at the tasks I've outlined on my list too.
What good can you do?
This is a positive question to start the day with.