How to Change the World From Your Backyard

In his 2005 novel, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” author Jonathan Safran Foer uses the voice of a loving father, Thomas, explaining to his precocious and analytical son, Oskar, that we all have the ability to make a major impact on the course of the universe. Using the example of the vast Sahara desert, he explains to Oskar in paraphrase “if you move a grain of sand, you change the world!” Oskar, for his part, extrapolates the already hyperbolic point to the assertion that not only can he change the world, but thereby, the universe, and, quod erat demonstrandum… he must be God! Thomas reminds Oskar that he is an atheist, and the lights are shut on the heartwarming scene.

But does this scene have any real application or merit? Of course it does, and the evidence is all around us, if we choose to seek it. I spent some time managing a franchise store of a national coffee shop. One morning, one of our regulars, Greg, came in to pick up his mobile order. His shoulders were hunched down, and eyes were unfocused, lazily scanning the floor. This wasn’t him. I grabbed a bag and tossed in two of his favorite doughnuts and walked around to the pickup counter where he was waiting for his order. I looked at him and smiled, and asked “what’s going on?” He answered “work sucks.” I continued to smile, offered him the bag and said softly “that isn’t what I asked. Spill.” After a silent moment, he sighed and told me in one long string of exposition about how and why work sucked; about a maelstrom of vicissitudes beating him down that just seemed to have no end or respite in sight. When he was done I continued to smile softly, and I opened my arms in a welcoming gesture. He accepted the invitation and allowed me to give him a brief hug. He looked up at me and said “thanks man, I needed that.”

I offered some words of encouragement and he left the store a different man than he entered. Greg manages two large mechanic garages in the New York Metro Area. As such, his job largely consists of giving customers bad news all day, and asking his staff to do more with fewer resources in the COVID era, while he himself is thrown into impossible situations by his superiors. Is there a chance that a moment of human compassion invested will have an impact on Greg, his customers, and his staff? Did my moving a grain of sand change the world? Absolutely. And all it cost me was three minutes, two doughnuts, and one hug. I don’t know about you, but I’d call that a bargain.