Would my individual contribution/action make any difference?

The first time I remember thinking about this question was when I got selected for the United World College scholarship to go study abroad in Italy for the last two years of high school. Maybe because the selection process involved me thinking about how the opportunity to study abroad could help me to help others.

The second time I thought about this question again was in college, specifically during my anthropology of development class, where the professor structured the class to ensure we think critically about the actual impact of the development projects in developing countries, usually sponsored by donors or institutions from developed countries.

I believe/hope that most of the funds from the development projects do go to the communities in need, but whether the funds created a sustainable solution for the communities or just a "band-aid" solution, we might need to do more M&E work for this.

Before and since I started my current job as a project officer for a development consulting firm, I thought about this question again. I even requested the professor I mentioned previously for a call to discuss if it would be right/wrong/too political for me to join this work. The professor encouraged me to take this opportunity as a learning opportunity, and that I didn't need to label it as good or bad. This advice makes sense to me, and I'm grateful I took the chance to try this job. I'm learning a lot about the international development field in Cambodia, even though this is just one part of it.

Then recently, I was listening to a podcast called: "How to be a better human" with the host Chris Duffy, and it was during the episode titled: "How to be perfect (with Michael Schur)". I almost skipped this episode, because I don't aim to be perfect, but I thought I should listen anyway, and I'm glad I did. Mainly because the speaker gave me a new perspective on how to think about this question in the title instead.

Michael encouraged listeners to ask the following questions, which I think are important and they help me answer whether my actions make any difference:

• What kind of person do I want to be?

• Small decisions - what difference does it make if I do this?

• Do I want to be a person who cares about the cause?

Michael also said: "Regardless of whether your action will fix the problem or not, which it probably won't, it is very rare that individual action fixes any large-scale problems. And that's not the right question to ask."

So from this, I understand that a better question to ask is: "Do I want to be a person who cares about the cause?". If so, then I do what I think is a good thing to do. If not, then I don't do it.

I understand that this might apply to the small decisions in life, but like habits, things start and can be built from small. So our action matters, even if we think it is small.