What Difference Do You Want to Make?
- May 11
- 2 min read
Among Jane Goodall’s final words was a simple, radical truth: your life matters—and every day, you make a difference. The only question is: what kind?
Two instructions live inside her message.
First: know you are already making a difference.
Whether you intend to or not, you shape the world through your presence—your tone, your gestures, your attention, your silence.
Yet in the West, we’re trained to believe the opposite: that we’re separate, self-contained, largely inconsequential. We’re not. We’re influencing one another all the time.
Second: choose the difference you want to make.
This isn’t about doing something extraordinary. You don’t have to travel to Tanzania at 26 and transform our understanding of chimpanzees—though that’s exactly what Goodall did, revealing how deeply we resemble them: affectionate, social, and yes, capable of violence.
You can make a difference today. Right where you are.
Choosing a Positive Difference
When Alan Briskin and I wrote Space Is Not Empty, we set out to make a beneficial difference. We dedicated the book to all those working toward a more just, inclusive, and compassionate world.
Our core claim is simple: fields shape us and we shape them.
The energetic, relational, and informational fields we live in influence our emotions, thoughts, and actions—mostly outside our awareness.
And when those fields turn toxic, so do we: conversations harden, decisions narrow, people get excluded.
Field Awareness Changes Everything
When you become aware of fields, you experience the truth of our interconnection. You begin to notice how we affect one another’s bodies, hearts, and minds—for better or worse.
And with that awareness comes choice.
The field isn’t just “out there.” It includes:
what’s happening inside you
what’s happening inside others
the physical space
the history of the group
even the history and health of the land.
A garden and a sterile meeting room don’t produce the same field. A community in crisis feels different from one in ease.
Land carries memory.
All of it matters.
So What Can You Do?
Start here:
1. Notice your impact.
Watch what happens around you. Are people shutting down—or opening up? Are they guarded—or engaged?
2. Sense from the inside.
Pay attention to your own body. Often, it registers what others are feeling before your mind does.
3. Care for the whole.
Expand your awareness beyond yourself to the larger field—your family, team, community, world.
Expanding Your Field of Care
As your awareness grows, so does your capacity to care. The two move together.
So here’s a third instruction I imagine Goodall would appreciate:
Pay attention to the field you are helping create.
Right now.
In this conversation.
In this room.
In this moment.
Because the difference you make isn’t someday.
It’s already happening.
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