Ripples make a positive difference (even introverts can do it)

Part 8: Ten things to take into 2025

Welcome to this 10-part series on 10 things to take into 2025.

Here are the previous parts:
Part 1: Digital tools over digital drugs (Alt: Go at human pace)
Part 2: Go deeper
Part 3: Build your bucket-line community (Alt: Mutual aid for life.)
Part 4: Slow travel
Part 5: Dance on the abundant edge (Alt: Be the weird one)
Part 6: Get to work in the non-monetary economy
Part 7: An ode to the public library

What are you taking into 2025? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to know.

Thing #8: Ripples matter

Sometimes I wonder whether what I spend my time doing is really making a difference. So this thing is a gentle reminder for 2025 that even the smallest drip can ripple out and make a positive impact.

We won’t know what even our tiniest action will do once it leaves our hands, but maybe we are passively providing social proof, educating, and/or inspiring someone who is ready to see and awesome idea in action.

Last August I started the Radical Postcard Club. My aim is to send small pieces of physical art out into the world. I imagine the postcards stuck to people’s fridges, or on their coffee tables, sparking conversations about the topic on the postcard. I’ve made them about riding bikes, mending, slow travel, and rest, among other radical ideas.

I constantly feel the urge to do this—to spread the word about things that feel important in creating the best version of the future we can, and live really well along the way.

This newsletter is another example of my endeavors to make ripples in the world, and so are my small but lively visible mending workshops. At six people at a time in each workshop, it doesn't feel like I’m making much of an impact though. Even with 600 (incredibly wonderful) newsletter subscribers (thank you everyone) it feels like a drop in the ocean compared to the mammoth level of urgency we require to course-correct at this stage.

But when I get my compassion goggles on I see that every little ripple helps.

The Radical Postcard Club currently has 43 postal members, which is incredible to me, although in the big picture, it doesn’t feel like all that many. But in the past 8 months, I’ve sent 485 postcards to members’ letterboxes.

That’s 485 small pieces of art with an important message that now exists out in the world. That’s not nothing.

We don’t all have to be shouting from our soap boxes, online and on social media though, there are lots of little things that make ripples in our daily lives too.

We are making positive ripples when we take bulk food jars and shopping bags to the shops, to help normalise reducing plastic to other shoppers.

We are literally wearing our values on our sleeves when we wear t-shirts with future-positive graphics and cover our drink bottles with climate justice stickers. Instead of advertising high street brands for free, we are walking billboards for the causes we care about.

We are wearing visibly mended clothes and sending out a message that repairing our clothes instead of throwing them out into landfill is cool.

We are speaking up in shops and cafes, asking for ethical and local food options and reusable mugs.

We are speaking up at work for planet-friendly alternatives, like recycled and recyclable materials, reducing waste in our workflow, or installing a secure bike rack to encourage cycle commuting.

We are bringing a compost bin to work to collect co-workers’ lunch scraps to feed our worms, which sparks juicy conversations about composting, growing food, and local food security.

We cycle-commute instead of driving and carry our helmets (like dorks) around to normalise riding to the wider community.

All of these are things that people can see us doing in public and might be like, huh, that person is doing that thing like it’s no big deal, I could probably do that too.

You don’t have to be loud and shouty to make an impact. Even introverts can do it.

When we lead the way and demonstrate these things we are living on the abuntant edge, where it’s not always comfortable, but it’s where the positive forward action is happening.

What do you think? Do you sometimes wonder whether remembering your reusable mug is really worth it in the big picture? I think so, and I’m going to remember that while I go about my day in 2025.

Thanks so much for reading this installment of Ten things to take into 2025.

Keep an eye out for the rest of this series coming to your inbox weekly.

This series is a homage to Catie Payne’s awesome Reskillience podcast's '10 Things’ series, in which her guests gather a list of 10 things to inspire a more resilient, skillful future.

Over 10 weeks, I’m jotting down 10 things (habits, ideas, mindset shifts, and gentle reminders) I’m taking into 2025, which is allowing me to sprinkle in all the juicy changes happening for me this year too.