What have you done to improve the world today?

This is a question I ask my grandkids on a regular basis.  The first time I asked, I could almost hear the wheels turning in Max’s head:  “I’m 10 years old!  What in the world does she think I could do to make the world a better place?”  But we talked about it. 

“Did you make your bed today?”

“No…”

“Oh, well that kills that idea.  But if you had, your bedroom would have looked neater and that would have improved the world… and probably made your Mom happy, too.  Did you feed the dog?  That would have certainly have improved HIS world!”

The goal of the questions was to get him to start thinking about what things he could do, even as a child, to improve the world.  It’s not something that most of us think about.  We assume that as just one person, there’s not a lot we could do.  But there are tons of small things we could do.  In fact, you probably already do many things each day to improve the world.  You just don’t think about it in those terms.

So I am inviting you to think more globally.  Think about what you did today.  Did it improve things for anyone?  In any way?  No matter how small?  Think of the butterfly effect.  Some small thing that you do could make a big difference to someone else.  And by starting to think in those terms, you might also start to notice more things that you could do.  Do more of them, and pretty soon, some big changes might show up.

If nothing else, if you see someone without a smile, give him one of yours!