Guest Blog 14
Steven Dunham discusses the power of the individual.
A Small Difference
By Steve Dunham
What difference can I make? I’m only one person. Especially as a writer, I sometimes feel that I’ve had little effect.
Some things I’ve written—things I intended for publication—have been read by only a few people. Did I do any good?
Other things I’ve written have been published in newspapers and in online publications, and I trust that they influenced some people positively, helped some people, or entertained some people. Often, though, writers and publishers place their work before the public and get little response. We don’t know what effect, if any, our writing is having.
Sometimes, though, things are happening outside my view. For example, a few years went by in which I got no royalties for my book The Editor’s Companion. I thought it might have gone out of print. Then, suddenly, in 2021, I got a check for three years’ worth of royalties (not enough to live on, not even for three weeks, in case you’re wondering). So people were still buying it and, I hope, reading it.
Sometimes the driver of a bus I rode to work would tell stories to the passengers. Once she told us about being impatient when a police officer made her bus wait while he let other traffic go.
Then she said to herself, “He can see things I can’t,” and she decided to be patient and trust the officer.
There are always things going on that I can’t see. As a writer, therefore, I hope that my writing does some good whether I can see it or not, whether it’s paying work or something I do just because I have something to say.
Making a small difference is worth it, I think. It applies, for example, to recycling. For years I scrupulously separated glass, plastic, and metal from my trash and put it into the recycling dumpster. Then one day I saw the garbage crew come and dump the trash dumpster and the recycling dumpster into the garbage truck. It all went to the same place!
I found out where the closest recycling center was and began taking the recyclable materials there. Is it worth the effort? “Even though my influence may be limited, it is not irrelevant,” wrote Father Neil Pezzulo on that same subject—individual efforts to protect the environment—in “The Culture of Care” in Glenmary Challenge magazine, summer 2016. I agree: even if my contribution is small, it is not irrelevant.
Some of my other efforts have benefited only one other person, or only a few. For four years I was a volunteer hospital chaplain, providing prayer, a listening ear, silent presence, or (more than once) cups for the water cooler.
Usually I interacted with just one person at a time—a patient, a family member, or a staff member—and rarely with more than just a few people, typically a patient and a few family members or friends. Sometimes my help was small, but it may have mattered a lot to one person.
Have you ever faced a problem and had people tell you that you would be fine? More than 25 years ago, I lost a job, and one thing I heard was “God has something better for you.” A few years ago, at another job, I could see layoffs coming at work, and indeed hundreds of us got laid off. Before we lost our jobs, I sent my résumé to a friend, who said he would circulate it at work but couldn’t promise any results. I told him that I knew he couldn’t promise results and that I would rather have one person trying to help than a hundred people assuring me that I would be fine.
Even if my efforts make only a small difference, they aren’t irrelevant, so usually I aim to be one person trying to help.
Steve Dunham is author of The Editor’s Companion book and blog
His website is Steve Dunham’s Trains of Thought (he likes trains but writes about other things too)
