It’s easy to get discouraged when the problems of the world feel overwhelming. To believe that what we do won’t make a difference. That the problems are too big and we are too small.
The choice becomes: do nothing … or do something.
I choose to do something, even when I can’t see what it will change. We rarely see all the ripples of the rocks we throw into the water. But there are ripples.
There’s always a rule in time travel stories. If you go back in time…don’t change anything.
Don’t step on a butterfly.
Don’t talk to the wrong person.
Don’t shift even the smallest detail because somehow, that tiny action could ripple forward and change everything.
Everyone in those stories seems to understand that.
And yet here we are, in our own moment in time… often wondering if anything we do makes a difference at all.
It’s a strange inversion. In fiction, a single step could alter history. In real life, we question whether showing up even counts.
Maybe part of the reason we question it is because we don’t all show up in the same way. Some actions are visible. Some are quiet. And some are first steps that take real courage to make.
We rarely get to see the full impact of what we do. The ripples move outward… beyond our line of sight. Sometimes far beyond our lifetime.
Imagine you’re driving home at the end of a long day. Traffic is slow, and up ahead you see a car pulled over on the side of the road. The hood is up. Someone is standing there, looking unsure what to do.
You hesitate. You could keep going. Someone else will probably stop. You’re tired. You have things to do. But instead… you pull over. You ask if they’re okay. You make a call. You wait with them until help arrives. It doesn’t feel like a big moment. It’s just a small interruption in your day.
And then you leave.
You don’t know what that moment meant for them … or what it might become.
You don’t see the ripple. You just live inside the moment where the choice happened.
We’ve all seen moments like this.
A teacher encouraging a student.
Someone speaking up when it matters.
A small act of kindness that lingers longer than expected.
They don’t feel like turning points, but we don’t always recognize turning points while we’re inside them.
There’s a concept people often call the “butterfly effect.” A small action, in a complex system, can set off a chain of events far beyond what we can predict. We only get to live the part where the choice is ours.
And that can make it feel like what we do doesn’t matter … because we don’t get proof.
Right now, we’re in one of those moments.
There are conversations happening… decisions being made… tensions rising… and many people are asking: Does it even make a difference? Does showing up matter? Does speaking up matter?
Does one small action – one voice, one sign, one gesture – actually change anything?
I recently saw a post arguing that these aren’t the actions that matter. That we need bigger, more impactful actions. And, yes, there are moments that call for bold, visible change.
But that’s not the whole story.
We don’t know who might be changed by what we do.
And we don’t enter this moment from the same place. For some, what looks like a “small” action is actually a first step. A moment of courage. A crossing of an internal line that others may never see.
Change doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in ways the system – and the people within it – can absorb.
Not everyone is called to the same action. But every action, rooted in care and conviction, can move something forward.
And we need all of it. The visible and the quiet. The bold and the tentative.
No one in history has ever known the impact of their actions. The people we now look back on – the ones who showed up in ways that mattered – didn’t act because they had guarantees. They acted without knowing.
Maybe that’s the deeper truth time travel stories are pointing us toward. It’s not just that small actions can change the future.
It’s that the future is always being shaped in moments that feel small at the time.
Not everything we do will change the course of history. But some things will, and we don’t get to know which is which.
So the question shifts. It’s no longer: Will this make a difference? It becomes: Who am I in this moment?
We don’t get to control outcomes, but we do get to choose how we show up.
Sometimes that looks like being present for someone who needs it.
Sometimes it looks like offering help.
Sometimes it looks like creating something – writing, speaking, building, connecting.
And sometimes… it looks like showing up in visible ways. Standing with others. Holding a sign. Adding your voice. Even something as simple as driving by and honking in support.
Small actions.
Ordinary actions.
The kinds of actions that, in another context, we might dismiss.
But what if we saw them the way time travelers see the past? Not as insignificant… but as moments where something could shift.
We are, in a very real sense, all moving through time in one direction, carrying the present into the future with us. Everything we do becomes part of that unfolding.
We only get this moment. This imperfect, uncertain, unfolding moment.
Time travel stories tell us to be careful… because small actions matter.
Maybe the invitation for us is simpler.
Not to be careful in a fearful way, but to be intentional. To recognize that we are always participating in the future, whether we realize it or not.
Change begins in small moments. Almost invisible moments.
So whatever this moment is asking of you—
something visible or something quiet,
something public or something deeply personal—
it doesn’t have to be everything.
It just has to be something.
A small action.
Taken with intention.
Rooted in who you are.
History is not only shaped by the moments everyone notices.
It’s shaped by the ones no one does.
And we are living inside one of those moments now.
We don’t get to choose the outcome.
But we do get to choose our action.
In moments like these, we can choose to move in the direction of love.
Joni Miller, Ph.D., is a writer, researcher, spiritual coach, and speaker who uses her knowledge, education, and love of all things spiritual to help spiritual wanderers find a place they can call home, navigating uncertain times by the light of Love. www.SpiritualGeography.net
Photo by Chris Kane: https://www.pexels.com/photo/reflection-of-building-on-body-of-water-at-daytime-166360/
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