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Taking Care of the Little Things

The American poet, Emily Dickinson, said “take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves”. The words seem timid in a time that urges big ideas, big conglomerates, and policies that are applied with a broad brush on a global canvas.

Individual acts can grow into movements. Abdul Sattar Edhi, the award winning social worker of Pakistan, would be seen trundling a wheelbarrow through markets collecting funds for healthcare, ten rupees at a time, or standing with arms outstretched for donations in the middle of the traffic. The Edhi Foundation single handedly gave hope to a whole generation and established a methodology that others emulate.

A.K.Khan, a horticulturist from Allahabad who migrated to Karachi, not only transformed a dusty city into a green oasis, but he introduced the concept of landscaping domestic gardens in the city, establishing it as a profession for others to follow.

Societies focus on human achievements, seeing nature only as a space to occupy and a resource to support human needs. Nature is a blueprint of resilience, adaptation, resource management, and regeneration. Its design complexity is not a crowded cacophonous mess like human society, but one of exquisite beauty and perfect harmony. A single bee can pollinate 5000 flowers daily. Bees pollinate around 75% of major food crops. Less than 4% of termites in the world actually infest homes, but nitrogen enriching termite farm soil can increase crop yield by 300%. This is the way of nature, what meteorologist Edward Lorenz called the Butterfly Effect.

Biologist Janine Beynus, who promotes biomimicry, makes an insightful observation of nature: “Year after year things get better and better just by staying there”. Yet people, rather than making incremental changes for improvement, abandon a village to move to the city, move from one part of a city to a better area or migrate to what is viewed as a better country.

In nature a single shrub in a desert, sustains an ecology not dissimilar to a dedicated teacher in a remote school who nurtures and inspires students. Many of Pakistan’s well known artists were first introduced to art by Lal Mohammad Pathan, an art teacher in Mirpurkhas.

Some individual acts may not be visible to others but can be transformative. Saving an injured bird can awaken a lifelong commitment to compassion and taking personal responsibility. Conversely, a child beaten by a parent is more likely to become a bully or a criminal. Small acts can affect the direction of big changes. The Fixit team of Karachi recently replaced missing drain covers in a symbolic gesture after a young child tragically lost his life after falling into an open manhole. In 2019, Numaish-Karachi’s Scheherazade project took a group of designers and artists to Lahore’s inner city to reactivate the courtyard of the Wazir Khan masjid and four adjacent streets. Since then, 50 more streets have been improved by local residents. By raising personal standards, we learn to judge others by the standards they maintain, rather than the power they wield. 

Economist E. F. Schumacher’s 1973 publication Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered, based on his study of village-based economics, was ahead of its time. However, as the nation state, a European export, becomes obsolete in a post national age, perhaps there will be a return to self-governing city states since 80% of the world population is projected to be living in cities by 2080. 

In this time of turmoil and helplessness, it is important to remind oneself that there is no act too small to affect change. Biotechnologist, Svetlana Poligenis, reminds us that when things seem to fall apart, “the future quietly rearranges itself”.  

The Sufi Bayazid said that as a young revolutionary, his prayer to God was to give him the energy to change the world. As he realized that half his life was gone without changing a single soul, he asked for the grace to change all those whom he came in contact with. In his old age, as his days were numbered, he asked for the grace to change himself. “If I had prayed for this right from the start I should not have wasted my life.”

 

Durriya Kazi

December 27, 2025

Karachi

durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

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