One Starfish at a Time

---

Creating Worlds by Showing Up

In my first year of teaching, I was feeling inadequate for the immense responsibilities of a public school teacher. For inspiration, I taped the Tale of a Starfish to the door of my classroom. It came with me to every classroom and office of my 35 years in the public schools. 

If you're not familiar with the poem, a parent and child are walking along the beach. Thousands of starfish have washed up in a storm. One by one, the child carries a starfish back into the water. The parent explains that given all the stranded starfish what the child is doing won't make a difference. The child looks at the starfish in hand and says, "It will to this one."

The truth is I was, in some ways, inadequate in my early years of teaching. No matter how much preparation a teacher receives, nothing really prepares them for what lies ahead. But for many of my students my class was the only part of school they actually enjoyed, the only place they felt they belonged. So I had to get over myself and show up for them.

I succeeded with students others could not reach simply by caring. I listened to them when they felt hopeless, wronged, misunderstood. I made space for their feelings. And their dreams. I also held them to higher standards than they had often experienced because I could see their greatness when they couldn't see it themselves.

"It will to this one" doesn't stop at work for me. 

I cut up the plastic six pack rings before putting them in the trash. 

When I traveled around Florida for work to places without recycling, I carried empty cans and bottles home in my suitcase.

I rescue lizards and spiders from inside my house. I help turtles cross busy roads. I once put a conference presentation on hold while my colleague and I saved a rat from a custodian's broom. I've returned my share of starfish and other creatures back to their ocean home.

"It will to this one" is how I've approached most situations in my life. And I've often been ridiculed for it because in our "logical" world, little things don't seem to make sense.

But, as Margaret Mead says in my favorite quote, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

And so, on October 18th, I found myself on the side of the road holding a homemade sign at my local No Kings Rally. I was in good company with 3,000 folks from my small city. But I've seen pictures of small groups, even individuals making their voices heard in tiny towns.

At current count over 8 million people stood up for healthcare, due process, and the Constitution. Those 8 million people don't share every goal, idea, or value but they share big ones like love, fairness, and freedom. 

My rally was full of peace and care and love - offers of water and sunscreen, help for those navigating grass in wheelchairs and walkers, sharing of the minimal, precious shade on a hot, sunny Florida day - tending to our neighbors.

The attendance at protests around the USA and the world come close to the 3.5% rule, a theory that such levels of participation can be a tipping point for change.

There is power in simply showing up. Worlds are created with our presence. 

Sometimes when creating worlds, we don't necessarily know the best next step to take. Holding out for "right" moments or conditions or only taking action when we are sure of the outcome can paralyze us. It can keep us from ever doing anything in the first place.

Not sure of the next step? Just begin. Just take one action that feels aligned with your vision of what the world can be. Just place one starfish at a time back in the ocean.

Creating a world requires faith, trust, detachment, resilience. 

We have to be willing to fail, to get it wrong, to be inadequate for the moment. 

We have to be willing to start knowing we may never finish. It takes years for an acorn to become a mighty oak tree.

But that's ok. Because creating worlds isn't actually about outcomes, it's about who we become in the creating.

The oceans are full of plastic and yet organizations like The Ocean Cleanup continue to remove it.

Three million children die annually from hunger, yet organizations like the Heifer Project and Oxfam still work to end this.

People who have not committed crimes are still being executed and yet the Innocence Project continues to use DNA evidence to exonerate those wrongly convicted.

Doing what we can with what we have from where we are is actually all we can do. And it is enough.

Was anything actually accomplished by me standing on the road waving a sign? I'll never really know. But that wasn't the point. The point was to be a stand for the things I care about and to be uplifted by sharing that with others. The point was to breathe life into the world I crave to create. For if not me, if not you, if not us, then who? 

What worlds do you long to create? How are you creating them one little step at a time?

Is there a world you are seeking to create? Would you like to connect with others who are on the same journey? Join us on substack, https://createaworld1.substack.com/