My Mosquito Teacher

There is a saying I have always loved:

“If you think you are too small to make a difference in the world, just spend the night with a mosquito.”

I don’t remember who first said it. But recently I had the great privilege—or perhaps spiritual assignment—of spending an entire night with one.

Possibly more than one.

It is difficult to say because at three o’clock in the morning every mosquito begins to feel like an army.

There I was, lying perfectly still, listening for that tiny whine near my ear. I would hear it, turn on the light, sit up, search the walls, find nothing, turn the light off, lie back down—and within minutes:

Bzzzzzz.

Light on.

Nothing.

Light off.

Bzzzzzz.

By morning, I had developed a profound respect for the influence of small things.

And somewhere in those sleepless hours, that old quote came back to me.

We spend so much of our lives believing we are too small.

Too ordinary.

Too unknown.

Too old. Too young. Too late. Too busy. Too unimportant.

Who am I, we wonder, to make any real difference?

But perhaps that is the wrong question.

Maybe the better question is: Who ever begins knowing they are going to make a difference?

I doubt the people who have changed history woke up one morning understanding the size of what they were about to do. They simply came upon a moment that asked something of them.

Gandhi did not begin as the man history would remember. He was a human being who encountered injustice and, little by little, decided he could no longer cooperate with it. One refusal led to another. One person stood differently, and then another person noticed. Then another.

Eventually, a movement was standing where one person once stood alone.

That is how change so often happens.

Not with thunder.

With a mosquito.

Of course, the mosquito in my bedroom was not exactly practicing selfless service. His contribution to humanity seemed questionable at best.

But you have to admire the commitment.

He did not seem concerned about his size.

He didn’t wonder whether he was important enough.

He didn’t sit on the lampshade questioning whether one tiny mosquito could possibly have an effect on one considerably larger woman.

He simply went to work.

And he absolutely changed my night.

Which got me thinking: What if we had the persistence of a mosquito but worked from the light?

What if we became equally determined to disturb the world with kindness?

Imagine refusing to believe that a small kindness doesn’t matter.

Holding the door.

Calling someone who is lonely.

Letting another driver into traffic.

Sitting beside the person no one else notices.

Forgiving someone.

Feeding someone.

Listening without preparing your answer.

Telling a frightened person, I’m here.

Speaking gently when anger would be easier.

Choosing not to pass along the cruelty that was handed to you.

These things seem terribly small.

But small things have always been underestimated.

A seed is small.

A candle flame is small.

A single drop of rain is small.

So is a word.

So is a thought.

So is the first quiet decision to live differently.

Yet a seed can become a tree large enough to shade people who were not even born when it was planted. One candle can light another without losing any of its own flame. A kind word can travel through a person and emerge somewhere else days or years later.

We rarely get to see how far our goodness travels.

That may be part of the arrangement.

We are asked to do the good thing without demanding proof of where it will lead.

Maybe you smile at the woman behind the counter who has been treated poorly all morning. Something in her softens. She goes home and has more patience with her child. Her child goes to school the next morning and sits beside the lonely boy instead of laughing at him.

And perhaps that boy grows up remembering that somebody sat beside him.

You will never know.

You were simply the first little light in a chain of lights.

We tend to imagine changing the world as something enormous, marches, speeches, revolutions, names written into history books.

But the world is changed every day by people whose names will never be written anywhere.

Perhaps that is what makes their goodness so pure.

They aren’t trying to become important.

They are simply trying to be useful.

There is something beautiful in realizing we don’t have to carry the whole world. We are only responsible for the little piece of it placed in front of us.

The person standing before us.

The animal needing care.

The stranger needing patience.

The family member needing forgiveness.

The injustice we happen to witness.

The opportunity to help that arrives quietly and inconveniently on an ordinary Tuesday.

We don’t have to know what becomes of it.

Our job is simply to choose what we send outward.

Because everything moves outward.

Anger does.

Fear does.

Cruelty does.

But so does love.

So does courage.

So does generosity.

So does light.

And perhaps this is where the mosquito has something important to teach us.

It never questions whether it is too small.

It simply uses everything it has.

Imagine if we did the same.

Imagine millions of ordinary people moving through the world like little determined mosquitoes of goodness, buzzing around relentlessly spreading compassion, mercy, courage and kindness.

We could be absolutely unbearable.

In the best possible way.

One person infects another with kindness, who passes it to another, who carries it into a home, a classroom, a hospital room, a grocery store, a workplace, a country.

And eventually nobody remembers where it started.

That is all right.

Light doesn’t need credit for illuminating a room.

So perhaps we should stop asking whether we are important enough to change the world.

Maybe none of us is.

Maybe all of us are.

Maybe the world has always been changed by ordinary people deciding that the small thing in front of them matters.

A hand extended.

A truth spoken.

A meal shared.

A wrong refused.

A stranger loved.

A light passed from one person to another.

And if you ever begin thinking your little contribution couldn’t possibly matter, I recommend spending a night in a dark bedroom with a mosquito.

You will reconsider the power of small things.

I certainly did.

So thank you, mosquitoes.

I would prefer that our future spiritual lessons take place outside my bedroom.

But I got the message.

Hari Om Tat Sat