Throwing Pebbles in an Ocean

I try to avoid becoming overwhelmed by all the doom and gloom in the world by minimizing my exposure to the news. Even for the most optimistic person, that constant influx of negativity isn’t good for one’s mental health. And when I ask myself whether I have any control over the situation, the answer is almost always ‘no’. I also ask myself if there’s anything I can do to help those impacted by whatever doom and gloom is happening in the world, and the answer is almost always ‘yes’, so that’s what I try to focus on. Do I have any control over a war that’s happening half-way around the world? No. Can I do things to help Ukrainian refugees in Brighton? Yes.

As the saying goes,

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I volunteer at the local school, working with struggling readers (8 girls and 1 boy). I get about 20 minutes a week with each of them. The learning gap that already existed between kids from different socio-economic backgrounds has been greatly exacerbated by two years of online learning. Three of the kids I work with are still learning the letters of the alphabet. In grade 2! They don’t, as far as I know, have learning disabilities, but they do have challenging home lives that don’t lend themselves to remote learning.

I adore these kids and love my time with them, but it’s hard not to come home feeling discouraged some days. The challenges seem so insurmountable. I can spend the whole session with a student teaching her the letter W, using all the techniques I’ve spent hours researching online. At the end of the lesson I’ll say, “So, what sound does the W make?” “yuh?” Arghhh! How will they ever catch up? And this is just one classroom in one school in one little town. So many kids have been negatively impacted by this situation and it’s likely to have far-reaching consequences.

My sister helps several refugee families, putting them in touch with agencies that can help, driving them to places where they can shop for second-hand clothes, and putting her passion for buying children’s clothes to good use. She feels that same sense of hopelessness and frustration when she sees these families struggling to afford diapers or medicine for their children, not to mention rent and groceries. They can’t move to somewhere less expensive because they can’t afford a car and they have no way to save for a better future when almost everything they earn goes towards rent and the rest doesn’t even cover groceries and essentials.

For Ray, it’s the environment. He’s very careful about minimizing his environmental footprint in his daily life. He’s researching solar panels for the house and electric vehicles for when we’re ready to purchase our next car. But it’s easy to feel like the steps he’s taking are insignificant given the enormity of the issue and the environmental impact from just one McDonalds restaurant, for example.

So, even when you try to focus on what you can do to change things, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged about the state of the world, and the complexity of the issues. This topic came up in conversations with both Ray and my sister recently, and we tried to find ways to keep each other’s spirits up, reminding ourselves that you can only do what you can do (wisdom to know the difference, and all that).

Many years ago, when I was a Big Sister struggling with my inability to ‘fix’ my Little’s life. Someone said to me, “Her life sucks right now, and it’s going to suck whether you’re in it or not, but it will suck less because you’re there.” That helped.

My sister remembered a psychology study she’d read about in university, where half the subjects in the experiment are given a buzzer to call for help if they need it, and half aren’t given a buzzer. The people who had the buzzer didn’t use it, but they experienced less stress than the ones who didn’t have access to a buzzer. “We’re the buzzer,” she said. That helped too.

The other thing I’ve learned is that the impact you’re having on people’s lives is rarely visible in the moment, but years later you may learn that something you said or did had a lasting impact. You might feel like you’re just throwing a tiny pebble into a massive ocean and watching it sink, but you don’t see the ripple effects of your action.

Anyway, November is a bleak month, so I guess it’s normal to feel a bit blah about things…which is not to say we haven’t been having any fun.

We’ve been curling for six weeks now and have not had to buy the after-game drinks once! That of course means that we have not yet won a game and are sitting firmly in last place.

We had our second games night and, despite randomized team selection, we ended up with the same teams we had the first night. Ray and Bill unfortunately were not able to defend their title, so Rick and Lorrie will share ownership of the Silver Beaver until the next time. Josee and I have not yet won.

Nick is doing well. He’s super busy with school work, fitness, Megan, and his active social life (not necessarily in that order). He’s still weighing his options for next year, trying to decide whether to apply for jobs or carry on to grad school. He’s hanging around with a lot of Master’s students this year, who are doing a good job of selling the grad school option.