If you’re feeling like you can’t possibly contribute enough to meet these absolutely messed-up times, practice thinking of yourself as part of a larger team.

When we think of ourselves as a team, whatever one person contributes, they do on behalf of us all. Whatever we offer enables others to pitch in.

I can participate in a neighborhood patrol because you are reading to the children; you can go to the rapid response training because I am caring for our sick neighbor. I can write a newsletter about kinship because someone else takes the garbage away. That person can attend their union meeting because a loved one is taking their mom to the doctor’s office that day. And so on, and so on, right around the world.

When we think this way, the scope of what “we” are contributing is limited only by the number of people we’re willing to include under the umbrella of “us.” And the more we build community, the more we build kin, the more we can get done.

I wrote about this idea almost exactly a year ago, and it’s feeling very relevant right now.