This is my second post on Clarissa Estes’ wonderful short essay “You Were Made For this”.
Estes opens with the line:
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach”
So often we cast ourselves in grandiose roles and then lament the difficulty in making meaningful change.
In this case, we should remember Estes’ line about not trying to fix the entire world and instead focussing first on the part of it within our reach.
This is not an invitation to be self centred and ignore others, but to start by serving others within our reach.
There are concentric circles of compassion and we can start with the one that is closest, and move out from there.
Those interactions we always have. Those people we already touch. This is our starting point. The can be our focus, and the value will radiate out from that point.
We don’t need to fix the whole world at once. If we just focus on one tiny fix at a time, the whole will take care of itself.
Read Estes’ whole essay here:
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