Early in the morning, on New Year’s Day, Tony and I woke to the sound of the alarm going off on my phone. Through squinting eyes, I looked at its screen, so badly wanting to hit snooze. Only I couldn’t; we had a flight to catch. I clicked, “Stop,” then laid in bed staring at the ceiling.

“It’s 2018,” I thought.

A minute later, I rolled over and nudged Tony to make sure he was awake. Then we got up to face our long day of travel home. We braved the negative six degree weather, and made our way to the Milwaukee Airport. There, after checking bags, surviving security, and finding our gate, I began to lose myself in social media until boarding.

On Instagram there were photo’s from the night before. People toasting champagne with friends, and others toasting sparkling cider with their kids. As I scrolled, a whole range of people, personalities, and life stages, passed before my eyes.

But then, I noticed the other posts. The ones where over and over, people talked about how bad 2017 was, and how they hope 2018 will be better. Many of them talked about the year ahead as if it was out of their control. As if 2018 itself will choose whether it will be good to us or not.

All this talk made me realize, many of us think life is something that happens to us, not something we have an active role to play in. Because many of the horrific things our world faced in 2017 were done by a few, we think we don’t have a role to play in making things better. And because the problems of our world are so big and so many, we make the mistake of thinking there is nothing we can do.

We’ve bought into a lie that says we can’t make a difference.

Worse though, I am beginning to wonder, if the problem actually lies in our math. Bear with me, because I am terrible at math, but maybe this equation is easier than we think. Today, everywhere I look—from the Church to our government—there is this attitude that we need a super leader to set things straight.

These leaders, it seems in our minds, are the numbers with exponents. They are the ones that lead thousands, and even millions. We point to them and say, that—for better or for worse—this is what leadership looks like. One “super” person for every couple thousand “regular” people. Only this math, discounts the leadership that is the foundation of everything good in our existence.

It undervalues the role of a mother and father in leading their children to be good people. 

It discounts the role a teacher plays in inspiring his/her students to do good things with their education.

It ignores the emotional and mental benefits mentors, counselors, or even invested neighbors can offer one another.

And it has us thinking friendships are just about us, and not about how we can impact the lives of those around us. 

This equation that insists only a few are responsible for the whole is getting us into trouble. It is tearing at the seams of everything that is good about our world. And it is looking to people who live miles away to fix what is happening in our own neighborhoods, and in our own homes.

We can’t change what happened in 2017. We may not even be able to prevent all that will happen in 2018. But if we begin to fix our math. If we begin to see ourselves as leaders, even if only of a few, we have the chance of making this year better. And we have the opportunity of preventing heartbreaking things from happening in our future.

Let’s not be people who wait for others to fix things. Let’s be people who play our part in making our world a better place.

Is life something you think happens to you? Or have you found your part?

Who do you have influence over? How can you encourage them today?

 

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