Making This World a Little Better Goal

Anyone who read my New Year's resolution last year knows that I vowed to keep a daily log of at least one thing I did to make this world a little better place. I'm happy to say that I fulfilled my goal. That is, I kept track. I can't say that I always made the world a better place, but at least I tried!

It was a very good lesson for me to realize that it takes a concerted effort to make a positive difference. It's not that it's difficult to do, but that one must really focus on it. There are so many ways to achieve what I set out to do: financial donations, volunteering of time, random acts of kindness (Look for one of my stories about how I was actually a recipient of such in the February 2017 release of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Random Acts of Kindness edition), etc.

Some days, I just made an effort to smile and maybe converse with someone I didn't know. Other days, I made financial, charitable contributions. And then on occasion, I really went out of my way to do something kind or served others in a special way.

Now, I must confess, there were 12 days where I didn't write anything in my log. One of those days, I was too sick to do anything but make it briefly out of bed. As for the other 11 days, it wasn't that I didn't do anything; I just forgot to make an entry.

The interesting thing about our positive actions is that we never know how positive they are. I'd like to think that I maybe made someone's day a little better and they were glad that I was in this world. I'd like to think that maybe my actions influenced them to do the same thing for someone else. I'd like to think that my one positive action kept multiplying with each person doing something good, and truly, together, we all made this world a little better place, if only for a couple of hours or even a day.

So my resolution for 2017? More of the same. I already have my three entries for this year. And I would like to encourage anyone reading this blog to just try doing what I'm doing. Let's take the negatives out of life and start concentrating on the good we can do, and the difference we can make.

Can you make the world a better place if you try? I'm sure of it!