Make a difference

"Make a difference" is one of those phrases we have all become immune to. Animal rights advocates, environmental activists, human rights advocates, charities for everything from saving the dung beetle to eliminating global hunger all beg and ask for you to "make a difference." The thing is most of us go through our days,weeks, even months without making any kind of positive difference in the lives of others. People forget however that it doesn't take much. Really almost nothing at all.

 James Knox ~ Pittsurgh Tribune-Review

The smallest effort can truly make the largest difference. It usually doesn't even take a monetary contribution or donation either. In Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, a borough of Pittsburgh, Allegheny Window Cleaning, Inc. workers dressed in superhero costumes when washing the windows of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. This simple gesture doesn't put them out. It certainly didn't put Mark Errico (Captain America), or Jim Zaremba (Batman) out. I'm sure Ed Hetrick loved going to work as Superman that day and why wouldn't Rick Boloinger want to repel down a building as Spiderman. This simple act of dressing in a superman costume instead of jeans that day made all the difference to the sick children in the Lawrenceville Hospital. That's really all it takes. The smallest effort can make the greatest difference.

So to make a difference in the world around you just do something nice. You don't have to go out and buy solar panels or a hybrid car (though it wouldn't hurt if you had the personal capital to do so). All you have to do is try and make one persons day a little brighter, hold doors and elevators, let the mother with three kids in tote go before you in the grocery store, buy the homeless man a sandwich and a cup of coffee or recycle your paper scraps at work instead of just throwing them in the trash bin. It doesn't take much to make a difference.