The Power of Just Showing Up

The victories that matter most don’t always come with big crowds. They start with one person (or two) deciding to care anyway.

On Saturday morning my son and I headed out into the gray, windy weather to take part in a citywide cleanup. The goal was simple: cover a zone of the city, pick up as much litter as we could, and leave the place better than we found it.

I had signed up as a "zone leader," expecting to help organize and work alongside a handful of volunteers. Seven people had been assigned to our zone. I pictured a little team chatting as we worked, laughing over strange finds, taking a social-media-worthy photo, high-fiving at the end.

But no one else showed up.

Maybe it was the weather. Maybe life got busy, or plans changed. I get it. Things happen. But standing there with my son, bags in hand, looking at an empty parking lot, I won’t lie: there was a moment of deflation.

And then we started anyway.

We cleaned up every street and sidewalk in our zone, just the two of us. We pulled plastic bags from fences and wrappers from storm drains. We filled two big bags with trash, and when we finished, we looked at the space we had walked, and it looked lighter. It looked loved.

Best of all: we had a great time. It wasn’t the morning I expected. But maybe it was better.

Photo: The Jack Pine, Tom Thompson

Because here’s the thing: when you care about something, whether it’s a trail, a river, a neighborhood, or an idea, you can’t tie your effort to the crowd that shows up. You have to tie it to the place. You have to focus your effort on the cause, and to the part of you that knows it’s worth doing, even if it’s just you doing it.

The victories we dream of, things like cleaner parks, stronger communities, protected landscapes, they don’t come only when the sun is shining and the turnout is big. They come when people keep showing up, especially when it's hard, especially when it's lonely, especially when it would be easier to go home and say, “Maybe next time.”

Today reminded me: even when it's not what you expected, even when it’s quieter than you hoped, even when no one is there to see it, showing up matters.

Sometimes it’s the only thing that ever does.

My writing here is free to you. I’m grateful that you are here, and so glad that you are reading. But also, I’ll never say no to a reader who would like to buy me a coffee.