There is an expression that springs to mind sometimes when you start to try to sort something out….
Q “ How do you eat an elephant?” A “ One bite at a time!”
It is easy to feel overwhelmed sometimes by problems and issues and feel that whatever you do, it will not be enough or the problem is just too big to solve. If any of you saw David Attenborough’s programme last Sunday, you may have been left with that feeling.
I have been lucky enough to travel fairly extensively in my life, and remember vividly when I saw an enormous rubbish heap of plastic in a country that had no organised rubbish collection, let alone recycling facilities. It struck me that re using my water bottles or putting things in a recycling bag was actually futile in the face of this. Then I remembered the elephant.
Last week has seen the passing of Captain Sir Tom Moore, whose name we probably all now recognise and know that, by walking around his garden, he raised a staggering £32 million for the NHS. He started out aiming to raise £1000 by his hundredth birthday. A thousand pounds for the NHS is a small fraction of the £115 billion allocated in 2019 to NHS England. However, Captain Tom’s initial target was easily met and wonderfully surpassed.
It is easy to think we are too small and insignificant to make a difference, but I believe otherwise. Currently, it is easy to feel that problems are enormous and insurmountable, but each one of us can make a huge difference. So, making that phone call, picking up plastic, recycling that piece of paper, turning out the light, giving a pound to charity and phoning a forgotten friend or relative will make a change.
In essence, however small our actions they do make a difference. It may seem a mere drop in the ocean, but those individual drops will become an ocean, and a tsunami of change for the better.
Warm and safe wishes,
#LizPugh, Head of Talbot Heath Junior School
