In a world of more than six billion people, it seems hard to believe that you can make an impact.

However, the 20th Century genius and social leader Buckminster Fuller shed some light on what one person can do.

He said:

“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do.

“Think of the Queen Mary–the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder.

“And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It’s a miniature rudder.

“Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all.

“So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab.

“Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.

“So I said, call me a Trim Tab.”

Never underestimate the influence that you as an individual can have. Find what you were born to do, become a “trim tab” in your sphere of influence, and the world will change because of it.

I try to be an informed and responsible citizen by keeping abreast of all the news from as many sources as possible.

But as I hear about major crises and problems, I often find myself intensely frustrated and angry at my seeming inability to contribute to the solutions.

In a world of six billion people, it’s hard not to feel insignificant and simply give in to cynicism.

In my frustration I turn to our leaders, hoping that they will have the answers and the influence to solve problems that are beyond the control of the individual citizen.

However, our elections are vivid illustrations that there is a dearth of solid, principle-based leadership in this country. Our political contests have been reduced to forcing us to choose not the best candidate, but the lesser of two evils.

Are we to simply vote along party lines? Wait a minute — where are those lines drawn anyway?

The more I look outward, the more I am convinced that the answers do not lie outside of myself. John Adams wrote,

“If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is because worthless men are at the tail, and the middle.”

In other words, our political leaders are mere reflections of our citizens. If we want our leaders to change, we have to change.

Meaningful and lasting national and global change must be enacted from the inside out, not the outside in, and it starts not with the individual.

Gandhi taught,

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

If I want to see a peaceful world, then I must pursue peace within myself, with my spouse, my children, and my extended family. If I want to see a better system of education in America, then I must take initiative and responsibility to educate myself and my children.

Instead of focusing on what I can’t do, I’m learning to focus instead on what I can do. I can’t pay off the national debt, but I can pay off my debt and balance my home budget.

I can’t solve America’s health care problems, but I can live a healthy lifestyle. I can’t stop corporations from dumping environmental waste in our rivers, but I can maintain a clean home environment.

The reformation begins with me. As I change myself, it inspires others around me to change, spreading from my family, to my community, to my state, to my nation, and ultimately to the entire globe.

Call me naive and idealistic if you must, but I won’t pay attention; I’m busy changing the world.

In his book Freakonomics, economist Steven Levitt compares two boys.

One boy was white, from a Chicago suburb, and had “smart, solid, encouraging, loving parents who stressed education and family.”

The second boy was black, from Daytona Beach, and was abandoned by his mother, beaten by his father, and had become a full-fledged gangster by his teens.

The second child, now 27 years old, is Roland G. Fryer, Jr., a Harvard economist.

The white child also made it to Harvard. But soon after, things went badly for him. His name is Ted Kaczynski — the man we know as the Unabomber.

Although our circumstances definitely influence who we become, it is our choice that is the ultimate determinant.

Everyone can find reasons to not live up to their divine destiny, if that’s what they want to focus on.

But we only hold on to our pain because it gives us an excuse to not take responsibility; as long as I have someone or something to blame for my pain, I don’t have to look myself in the mirror.

Take responsibility for choosing your responses to circumstances, however painful they may be.

Alissa Walker recently published an interesting story in Fast Company entitled “An Urban Farm Teaches Millennials How to Disobey.”

The story reports:

“As a graduate student at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Robyn Waxman became fascinated with the next generation of designers’ role when it came to protest and civil disobedience, a place designers and artists have been focusing their efforts for centuries. Studying millennials, who are generally considered to be a group of participatory, positive, technologically-savvy 18- to 30-year-olds, revealed some interesting insights: This was a generation that had solid respect for the law and was reluctant to publicly criticize the status quo.”

After hosting a panel discussion to explore her idea, she confirmed that millennials aren’t likely to engage in the radical protests of previous generations.

“She realized if confrontational behavior was not in their nature,” the article continues, “then she would have to introduce a form of more perpetual protest.”

Her idea was to physically reclaim a strip of public land bordering the school’s street, which the school shares with homeless residents and day laborers.

Waxman remembers, “We were three transient populations brought together by a piece of toxic land that held the potential for building community and for addressing a food issue.”

The project was named “FARM,” or the Future Action Reclamation Mob. On the first day of work, more than 50 people showed up to help.

The mini-farm is thriving, and has sparked a number of similar projects.

“Protest doesn’t have to be something that people hate,” says Waxman. “That’s what makes it so enticing for this generation.”

So what does this project spark in you? What ideas do you have for challenging the status quo through passionate service?

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. Under the worst circumstances imaginable, he found that he still had a fundamental freedom.

In Man’s Search for Meaning he wrote,

“The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Do we who live in the freest nation in the history of the world have any excuse for not being heroes?

The story is told of a young man who went to work for a rancher.

The first day of work the rancher asked the man, “Can you sleep when the wind blows?”

The young man was confused and didn’t know what the rancher meant.

That night a severe storm woke up the young man and he jumped frantically out of bed, afraid that the cows would be lost in the storm.

He ran outside, only to find that the cows were safe and warm inside the secure barn.

The rancher had taken care of them before retiring for the night.

As he went back inside, the man saw the rancher sleeping soundly. He then knew the meaning of the question the rancher had asked.

Can you sleep when the wind blows?

Booker T. Washington was an extraordinary hero from whom we can learn many valuable lessons.

Born a slave in Virginia, he was freed after the Civil War, then set out to become educated.

He arrived at the Hampton Institute determined to gain admittance.

In his autobiography, Up From Slavery, he wrote the following:

“I presented myself before the head teacher…After some hours had passed, the [she] said to me:

“‘The adjoining recitation-room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it.’ It occurred to me at once that here was my chance…I swept the recitation-room three times. Then I got a dusting-cloth and I dusted it four times.

“All the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table, and desk, I went over four times with my dusting-cloth. Besides, every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner in the room had been thoroughly cleaned.

“I had the feeling that in a large measure my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning of that room. When I was through, I reported to the head teacher…She went into the room and inspected…

“When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor, or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly remarked, ‘I guess you will do to enter this institution.’

“I was one of the happiest souls on earth. The sweeping of that room was my college examination, and never did any youth pass an examination for entrance into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine satisfaction.

“I have passed several examinations since then, but I have always felt that this was the best one I ever passed.”

Associated Press writer Ashley M. Heher once reported that,

“Lawyers for slave descendants asked a federal appeals court…to revive a landmark reparations case that demands 17 of the nation’s insurers and banks publicize and pay for their roles in the country’s slave trade.

“The case, which names Wall Street behemoths JP Morgan Chase & Co., Aetna Inc., Bank of America, Lehman Brothers and others, says the companies’ predecessors issued loans to slave owners and, in some cases, owned, insured and transported slaves…all at a financial profit that helped ensure their success today.”

Slavery was an awful stain upon the fabric of our nation, and it continues to negatively impact us today.

Yet if we are to move beyond the suffering and heal the wounds caused by slavery, it will take voluntary heroism by individuals, not misplaced and misguided governmental force.

Everyone born into this life has a fundamental choice that determines their happiness and success, or lack thereof. That is the choice between victimhood and heroism.

Admittedly, this is easy to say relative to the issue of slave reparations for a person whose ancestors didn’t come from slavery, but the principle applies nonetheless.

If all of us were to seek reparations for atrocities committed on our ancestors, where would the chain of victimhood end?

Why shouldn’t we have groups seeking reparations from companies in Britain who helped finance the war against the colonies? Where are the lawsuits against France for the Napoleonic Wars? Should Rome sue Germany for the Germanic tribes that sacked Rome?

Gratefully, we still have commonsensical judges who recognize how ridiculous is the concept of reparations from historical abuse. Said Circuit Judge Richard Posner involved in the case,

“If you think you’ve been wronged, it shouldn’t take 100 years to investigate the conduct of Aetna, Lehman Brothers and the like. There are a lot of people living today whose parents were wealthy in the 19th century who have nothing.”

It’s also unclear how money will solve the problems of those seeking reparations.

Receiving money will do nothing to help them make the decision to be heroes instead of victims, neither will it allow for volitional charity from individuals and corporations who may have contributed to the evils of slavery and racial oppression.

Without a fundamental change in consciousness, increased amounts of money do nothing but exacerbate existing problems.

Reparations for slavery are like putting a band-aid on a gaping, traumatic wound that actually requires surgery.

Public and private virtue stemming from personal, voluntary choice in the minds and hearts of individuals is the only thing that can deeply and truly heal the pain caused by slavery.

For example, companies who have blights in their history from slavery could voluntarily create programs to help struggling black youth, and people seeking reparations must choose to be heroes instead of victims.

It sounds simplistic on the surface, yet this prescription is, in fact, the most difficult method for solving human problems.

It’s easy to look outside of ourselves for solutions, but painful and exhausting to turn inward.

As Marianne Williamson said,

“The most important factor in determining what will happen in our world is what you decide to let happen within you.

“Every circumstance–no matter how painful–is a gauntlet thrown down by the universe, challenging us to become who we are capable of being. Our task, for our own sakes and for the sake of the entire world, is to do so.”