I am a firm believer in the ripple effect. I know it can be tempting to believe that initiating profound movements or transformations is the only way to really bring change to our world. While bold action is beautiful and can be necessary, seeing it as the only way sometimes lets the individual off the hook, reduces personal responsibility.
I see it as more effective -- and more truthful -- to believe that small things matter, to think of our actions as dropping a pebble into still waters, causing ripples to spread and expand, moving outward. A smile, a kind word, a helping hand can all inspire the recipient to do the same for someone else. These acts can stop the downward spiral of someone's day, life them up, bring positivity, and send their day in a completely different direction.
As a practitioner of yoga, I believe this concept to be one of the foundations of this science. By using the techniques of yoga to step into my vibrancy as an individual, I am also elevating the vibrancy of the world. Energy ripples out. Expansion creates a larger embrace. A lightening is offered.
Every ripple has a starting place, a point of origin. Are you willing to commit to regularly being a point of origin? Might you consider the effect of your thoughts and actions, and commit to acting graciously as much as possible? to choosing kindness? Will you dedicate to the practices that fill your well, feed your joy, seek your own peace, so that you have a resource within yourself, a mountain of pebbles to drop and send those ripples flowing?