Let's all be Billy Kwan

"Add your light to the sum of light."

That’s a quote from Billy Kwan, the diminutive photographer from arguably the greatest movie ever made—The Year of Living Dangerously—played by soon-to-be-Academy-Award-winner Linda Hunt. What is not arguable is that it’s one of the great roles you will ever experience put to film.

In it, she offers her freshly-arrived and very green colleague Guy Hamilton (played by a young Mel Gibson) advice on how to navigate the immense pain and suffering he was about to experience his first time in Indonesia.

Kwan: “What then must we do?” Tolstoy asked the same question. He wrote a book with that title. He got so upset about the poverty in Moscow that he went one night into the poorest section and just gave away all his money. You could do that now. Five American dollars would be a fortune to one of these people.

Hamilton: Wouldn’t do any good. Just be a drop in the ocean.

Kwan: Ah. That’s the same conclusion Tolstoy came to. I disagree.

Hamilton: What’s your solution?

Kwan: I support the view that you just don't think about the major issues. You do whatever you can about the misery that's in front of you. Add your light to the sum of light.

Add your light to the sum of light.

Don’t be paralyzed by the enormity of what is happening today. Add your help to the sum of help. Even if its $1. Per year. Even if its a bottle of water. Or just a smile. Do what you can, no matter how small.

The monsters running the world today have lost that human connection. You are different. You are better.

So add your light to the sum of light.

EDIT: Don’t be discouraged when you fail to do something good in the moment and start thinking of yourself as fraudulent. Nobody expects perfection. Just from time to time, maybe don’t walk past. From time to time, maybe make a donation. Maybe smile at someone whose day has been shit up to that point. You don’t have to be 100%. Just don’t be 0%, and the world will have been better that day because you were in it.