Resolve to Make a Difference

If every year ends with you thinking about how you really want to leave your mark, how you really want to help others and make a difference—yet you never seem to really do anything with your desire—why not make 2010 the year of making a difference? There are plenty of ways to do this. Here are some resolutions you might want to make about volunteering, being an activist, and generally making the world a better place.

Make the Earth a little cleaner every week. Maybe you’ll pick up the park one week, clean up a stream the next, or adopt a highway. Remember to wear protective gloves.

Change a life each month. You don’t have to go all Will Smith in Seven Pounds, but you could definitely donate blood or marrow. If you absolutely can’t, why not give clothes and other items in your home you’re finished with? You could also adopt a child through a sponsorship (or mentoring program), tutor at a school for at-risk students, or buy a pair of new shoes for a homeless person.

Just be conscious. Maybe you want to learn about a new issue each month—say, climate change, or human trafficking—and then implement your newfound knowledge in your daily life. Perhaps you’ll buy less, start a composting bin, or volunteer with a human rights organization.

Be loving in thought, word, and deed. Abolish hate from what you say and that alone will bring peace in your life, if not others’ lives as well. How often do you (or people you know) complain, whine, or say mean things about people—whether you know them or not? Instead, why not try only saying kind words, and when hateful things pass through your mind, simply letting them pass?

Brighten someone’s day every day. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture: smile at a stranger, give sincere compliments, stick a sticker on a passing coworker’s shirt.

Be the random acts of kindness avenger: think up a wild and wacky idea every day. Call a stranger in the phone book and ask him or her to talk about his or her life, dreams, favorite memories, etc. Go to the dollar store and spend a twenty on the coolest toys you can find—and then drop them off at the home of a family you know would enjoy them. Cook a huge batch of your best recipe—chili, stew, lasagna, whatever—and take it to your neighbors as a winter treat.