How can you or I as one individual, in a world of billions, make a significant difference?

For most of us, we do make differences everyday, the changes we make are usually subconscious and do not make the level of global significance, but do impact us personally and often our immediate surroundings.

However, by focusing on the smaller changes we make we can produce smaller effects that have positive implications:

• we learn to become active in the decisions we make
• our actions become purposeful
• actively engaging in the changes we want to see has positive health benefits, both mental and physical health  
   

Here’s to the crazy ones.
 
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
 
They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.
 
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
 
Because they change things.
  They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
 
And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
 
— Steve Jobs / Apple

 

It is very easy as ‘one person’ to feel overwhelmed by the task of changing ‘the status quo’ or ‘the system’, leading us to feel powerless and giving up before we begin. The ‘system’ is a faceless, abstract concept, acting as a ‘black box’, that prevents our engagement in helping to change it.

We accept many rules to function as a society, it is ingrained into as children that history has been created by the vision of great men (I say men here, because I believe the contribution of women in history is massively underreported), who exert power over the masses. However, we as individuals accept these rules, we accept the belief that great people should guide us along the correct path of change. And yet without our agreement, the system has no power.

If we examine what a Politicians role is, we conclude it is to endorse the will of the people. Passing of laws and statutes are often made secondary to a societal shift in values or understanding. Taken to its natural conclusion, we must accept that we are responsible for all that is bad as well as all that is good with society. We must also accept, however, that we have the ability and power to change it.

We can try and change the system and its regulations, or we can choose to ignore the system and regulations, the choice is ours.

This is covered in more detail in Challenge The Limitations.

I want to take a minute, this is all starting to sound very political and revolutionary, if my blog stimulates you to create your own vision and set your own path, that is fantastic and I would love to hear about it. My aim, however, is to change a health system, it could be argued that the NHS in UK is so politically entwined that it is difficult to claim to want to change it without being political.

But what I am suggesting is that there will be many obstacles to instigating a digital revolution in the NHS, one of them may be a political barrier, but the institutionalised obstacles are likely to be greater. And I’m not trying to instigate protests, but accept that obstacles can be overcome.

I may not be able to achieve it as an individual, but ‘We’, as a collection of individuals with a common vision will achieve something amazing. Find the inner lion, we must be a Pride, a collection of mis-fits, of round-pegs. We must accept that our every action has meaning and that the system is our own creation - ‘We’ have the power to change it.