A SAMPLE MICRO ACTION

Ready to help, but think you lack the time and resources to accomplish anything meaningful? No worries! You don’t need to donate a kidney or run a grueling marathon for charity to make a real difference. In fact, some of the most powerful ways to help someone are so simple, they can easily fit into the spare moments of your day.

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Do you ever notice the mess around you?  I’m not referring to large messes in the world; I’m talking about the little messes we encounter everywhere in the community.  Litter on the sidewalk, unkempt lots, graffiti… broken windows. Ever hear of the “Broken Windows Theory?” BTT suggests that small, visible signs of disorder (like broken windows) can send a signal that no one cares, encouraging more chaos in our communities.

Are you a “it’s-not-my-mess-not-my-probem” type, or more of a “if-it’s-going-to-be-it’s-up-to-me” type?

Maybe you’re the sort that gets an oddly satisfying feeling pushing a stray shopping cart back into the corral. If so, you’re in the habit of flipping the script on BTT, even in the smallest of acts. Small, maybe… but every time you take a moment to push in your chair at a coffee shop or pick up a piece of paper near a trash can, you send a powerful, non-verbal cue to everyone else that says, “I like order, I like tidy, and someone cares here.”

Here’s just a handful of suggestions to help inspire more small acts of caring:

• Bussing your own table at the food court, including pushing in your chair (and maybe the one next to it).
• Putting the divider bar on the checkout conveyor for the person behind you.
• Returning a single, lonely dumbbell to its rack at the gym.
• Picking up that one rogue straw wrapper that just missed the trash can.
• Straightening that stack of magazines.
• Bravely replacing the empty toilet paper roll at work.
• Facing all the ketchup bottles in the same direction (OK, maybe that one is bordering on OCD).

It doesn’t have to be complicated and overwhelming. In fact, a “Swift Sweep” might not take any more than a few seconds.

In an increasingly messy culture where small efforts are ignored or even ridiculed, “Swift Sweeps” become a positive, counter-cultural act. By going against the grain and taking responsibility for our surroundings, we become a part of a movement that challenges societal norms. In this sense, placing that divider bar on the checkout conveyor for the person behind you becomes an act of rebellion, but a profoundly positive one. It’s nothing less than a declaration to the world that we refuse to accept a living space – our living space – degraded by carelessness and indifference.