Small Miracles
by Elizabeth Kanabe
I was watching the movie “Michael” a couple of weeks ago and one line stuck with me. In the movie John Travolta is an angel named Michael that gets to choose a limited number of situations to help on earth and is fulfilling his final involvement in the lives of a group of three people. At one point in the movie, one of the men asks him why angels only get involved with one situation at a time instead of just making the world a better place to live for everyone. To this Michael answers that he can get involved with individual people and impact their lives, but you cannot expect to change human nature and the world as a whole.
I think that this idea applies to us every day. When we think of Ayn Rand’s quote that the “smallest minority on earth is the individual”, we understand it and apply it to our views on individual rights, quotas and laws. We don’t always, however, apply it to how we look at the world day to day. If we look at that quote another way, we can then say without argument that there is no majority that is not composed of individuals.
I notice too often that people complain about situations, but almost never take the time to look at the individuals, the motivations, and the thinking behind why something is as it is. It is easier to blame “human nature”, government and an evil company and expect change to occur on a large scale than to rebuild from the individual. Often if the change isn’t seen on a large scale, it is thought of as impossible.
Physically, nothing gets built from the outside in, the top down. Things have to work their way up. You cannot put up fours walls and expect a house to stand strong. You start by putting in the time to lay the foundation and bricks from the ground up. Similarly, once built, you cannot expect to tear down the house and rebuild the whole thing if there is a leaky pipe.
We can take a similar approach when we deal with people, group cultures and how we share our ideas with others. Change takes time, and occurs one person and idea at a time to make it strong. Thinking that change is impossible, will only make it so and leave you fighting for the opponent.
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