The Impossible chapters reminded me a lot of a saying I encountered a few months ago: “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly”. My perfectionist tendencies immediately reared their head reading this. Why would I do an assignment if I wouldn’t get a good grade or try something if I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it? I had to challenge myself a lot to open myself up to this saying and eventually understood that even if I couldn’t do something perfectly, if I thought it was a worthwhile endeavor I should try, regardless of the outcome. If the options are missing out on an opportunity to do something or potentially failing or doing that thing imperfectly, there is a lot more to be gained from at least trying.

The reading reinforced that idea. It can be overwhelming to think about the enormity of the problems in the world, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least try. While we can’t completely solve climate change single-handedly, that doesn’t mean that we should throw our hands up and accept climate change as a fact of life. We can still recycle, shop sustainably, or whatever options are accessible in our lives. We may not be able to pay for our neighbor’s surgery, but we can still give them a ride home when they need one. As Zinn says in chapter 5, “Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world” (64). There are no guarantees in life, but when we try in any small way, we open up possibilities that don’t exist if we choose not to act at all. Small actions have the possibility to spark big change, but that requires us to do something. Life is unpredictable, power can change hands in an instant, ordinary people banded together have the power to do incredible things, so we kid ourselves when we say we aren’t capable of making a meaningful impact. Even if we don’t make changes on a national scale, improving the life of just one person is better than not helping anyone at all. 

I don’t really have anything to say about this quote but I had to write it down in my notes on my phone because I found it so moving/inspiring/whatever you want to call it so I thought it was worth including in my final blog post: “The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory” (72). I think that’s a fitting message to take away as we wrap up the semester.