A friend posted a simple graphic soon after the start of 2018. If I remember right (I can’t find it just now) it showed two characters, one worried-faced and wringing hands, one kneeling in the dirt. The first gives a litany of worries about the new year familiar to anyone paying attention. So much going wrong.

The second says, still kneeling, hands in dirt: “I think the new year is going to bring flowers.”

First: “Why would you say that?”

Second: “Because I’m planting flowers.”

Such a simple reminder of two basic facts:

a) Doing something helpful with your hands feels better than wringing them.

b) We all make the future with everyday small acts.

Every choice we make adds up to our personal consequences and our collective reality. It’s easy to slip into believing, in this aggrandizing age, that only the big mouthpiece and the viral video—the people who gain widespread attention—can possibly make a difference. But every single small thing adds up, and in fact there are no small things at all.

The energy of a kiss blown in love is no different from a kind word offered to another or a generous gift affecting hundreds of thousands. There’s no need for “scalable,” for “platform,” for “visibility,” not on the level of karmic consequence.

And for added perspective, remember, in the words of Paramahansa Yogananda:

Infinity is our Home. We are just sojourning awhile in the caravanserai* of the body. Those who are drunk with delusion have forgotten how to follow the trail that leads to God. But when in meditation the Divine gets hold of the prodigal child, there is no dallying anymore. Enter the portals of the New Year with new hope. Remember you are a child of God. It lies with you as to what you are going to be.

*I had to look this up. It refers to a roadside inn, especially along the Silk Road. Body as inn: I like it! (Similarly Rumi writes, “This being human is a guest house” and exhorts us to greet every joy and sorrow as a visitor.)

What shall we plant in 2018? The seeds of flowers, of justice, of awareness, of transformation?

Permit me another quote, from venerable author Ursula K. Le Guin, who died Monday:

“The law of evolution is that the strongest survives!’ ‘Yes, and the strongest, in the existence of any social species, are those who are most social. In human terms, most ethical…There is no strength to be gained from hurting one another. Only weakness.”

Let’s plant the seeds of Le Guin’s brand of strength.