How to Make a Difference Even When You’re Feeling Helpless

Storytellers are immensely powerful. Let’s not waste our gifts.

Just as I was about to pen a piece about this precise topic, Aussie Medium writer Tim Denning did it for me. Here is his piece:

I don’t need to repeat his excellent points, but I am going to amplify them.

Tim has a unique position in that he is already pretty visible, so people are likely to find him and ask for his megaphone to help and promote their causes.

I don’t have quite the same level of visibility but I do have plenty of it among my community: adventure travel.

To that, I just hung up from a ninety-minute Skype call from two very important players in the international climbing community. They are part of a super-proactive movement that is building right now to respond to what is possibly going to be an epic crisis among the mountain crew. I will write those articles later, but this is my point:

If you have a community that is in your lane, and you speak their language, you and I have the chance if not the moral imperative to rise. There are going to be stories on the ground right now as dedicated people are setting aside their personal woes and helping those in greater need.

With death tolls rising, doomsday writers sans credentials are moaning and groaning about how awful it’s going to be (and they have no clue any more than you and I do) and the bad news continues to cascade, we have the chance to Shine the Light on Lights.

People who do that instantly provide best practice ideas to others. That’s a Light.

People who focus on the good news and identify what’s going on tell others who might possess energy, funds and a commitment where they can put their shoulders to the task. That’s a Light.

People who write about what’s good and kind and positive are healing themselves as they write about healers. That teaches them to put more focus on what’s good in their own lives. That’s a Light.

People who find good people, and then they connect those good people by building a community so that the shared best practices and resources help even more, are the Light.

When you and I use our best skills to spread the right stories about the right people doing the right things for the right reasons, we become the Light.

Be the searchlight. Be the spotlight. Be the watchlight. Be the great shining lighthouse that protects sailing ships from the rocks.

Put another way, Gandalf couldn’t have become Gandalf the White without learning how to be Gandalf the Grey, and before that, whoever he was as an apprentice. We become powerful through service. Gandalf gently guided Bilbo Baggins into heroism. Later, he did the same with Frodo. Those tiny Hobbits transformed their worlds, but they needed Light. Gandalf and others provided it. You and I can be too, by lighting up people doing good when the world seems dark.

You can tell I just got the movies in the mail. Gotta have my hobbits, if for no other reason than both sets are so full of life lessons about sacrifice, goodness and love. Seemingly small and insignificant everyday people doing remarkable things when the times call for it. Just like you and I can.

Before you argue that well, Tim and I have access to all these people, I would recommend GENTLY putting a sock in that for just a sec here. Those folks Tim and I are writing about, those stories we’re highlighting, are about people who in some cases are worse off than we are.

You and I are uniquely positioned to get out on the Internet, talk to our buddies and friends and search for good news. You will find it. Lots of it. But you need to the sleuth work. Good writers, even those of you who aren’t journalists, and I am, can learn to be journalists. We research, seek, dig, look past the superficial skin of a story. That’s what good journalism can do.

My guess is that the everyday local heroes and sheroes who are putting the time in, like my immediate next-door neighbor Judy, would love to get highlighted. Judy and Ralph replaced That Asshole Jerry. Judy’s busy making masks. She offered me one yesterday. Judy’s a Light.

Good news heals. Good news spreads hope. Good news gives all of us ideas that we might never have thought about. That is how hope, like bright silver rope, reaches down to us and lifts us up.

But you gotta grab it and hang on tightly.

Some folks prefer to sit around, wail about how bad things are and hang onto you hard for company. Charles Roast wrote me about how someone at work talked to him about “End Times,” as in Revelations kinds of End Times.

Dude. Not helpful. (Not Charles. The End Timer). People have been walking around wearing sandwich boards yammering about End Times since the beginning of Time. I figure, we’ve got time. Plenty of it. Question is what we’re going to do with it.

Naysayers? Look.

That’s their journey and they are not bad for that choice. However if you and I make different choices, we are part of what’s right, what’s working, what’s healing. We lift ourselves and others up to where we become part of that Light.

What does that look like in movie terms?

Among my sheroes is the Elvin Queen Galadriel. She is one of the most powerful Lights. In one particular scene from The Hobbit, when the Dark of Sauron appears to overwhelm all that is good, she steps in to do what Galadriel does best. This clip sets the scene and allows you to experience the entire exchange, or you can FF to the End Game piece when Lady Galadriel rises in all her terrible power and has a rather lively conversation with the nascent Sauron.

I love this scene almost as much as I love the scene where Éowyn kills the Witch King of Angmar in the Battle of Minas Tirith. She is a Light.

I can only speak for myself. I have surrounded myself with Lights. Every single one of those people has found ways to boost their wattage right now. I call them, they call me. I am deeply fortunate, as are we all as writers and storytellers, to be pretty damned good at finding Lights and Lighting them up even more brightly.

Real leaders are going to work hard at uplifting others the best way they can. You and I can add to the good news, which we all desperately need, along with the laughter (which is a great Light-Bringer) and warmth that people crave.

I am off to exercise for about an hour. I need the energy for I have a bunch of work to do.

When I come back I am going to channel Galadriel. Éowyn. The fictional and real-life characters who keep handing me the silver rope of inspiration.

Let’s do that for others.

Let’s be the light.

This article is dedicated to our Illumination friend Dr Mehmet Yildiz, who is one of the Lights. Thank you.