This is Hideaki Akaiwa. When the tsunami of March 2011 hit Japan, he was at work. Once he determined that his wife of 20 years remained trapped in their home, he found a wetsuit and hurried toward her. But in order to do that, he had to defy authorities and experts, who demanded that everyone wait for the army to show up.

Hideaki had to take enormous risks (it was night at this time), but he found his wife, trapped in their home and with very little air remaining. He pulled her to safety. A few days later, when he verified that his mother was still missing, he did the same thing and saved her as well.

One lesson to draw from this is that authority always demands what is best for authority, not what is best for you and your family. But more importantly, we see that heroism is available to all humans, not to some particular type. This man was a 43 year-old doctor.

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Before returning to the mundane, consider that everyone you pass today has within them the capacity to be a hero. Humans are just that way. Yes, some of us have impediments, almost every person you’ll see has it in them somewhere. See if you can help someone recognize that part of themselves.

These four young men – Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond – sat down at a lunch counter which was forbidden to them solely because of their skin tone. The four men sat peacefully, but refused to move. And they remained at the counter, regardless that none of the “student leaders” at their university showed up as promised.

These young men persisted, and others slowly joined them. Eventually the business relented and treated them like everyone else.

There comes a time when honest men and women must take a stand, if they are to live with self-respect. And these men, even though quite young, did precisely that, at considerable risk. As it turned out, they helped change one corner of the world, but more importantly they changed themselves.

* * * * *

Now, before going back to the mundane, please think about situations in which you might do something like this. But don’t look at the heroic aspect of it. Rather, consider the risks involved, and the very serious possibility of failure. What matters about such actions is not their success, but that we do what we believe is right… that we value ourselves above the demands of the collective.

This image is of a 12 year-old girl, during the Flint, Michigan water crisis of 2014. What she’s doing is inventing a a cheap, easy to build and use lead detector, to help the people of Flint.

Even though she was living a thousand miles away, in Denver, Colorado, she harnessed her unusual abilities and used them to great effect.

Undeserved suffering calls decent people to do something about it… even the young and inexperienced. What older people need to do is to help them find and use such opportunities.

* * * * *

Now, before you move back to the mundane, consider how you might help a young person to discover and use their talents. This is not always an easy chore, and your odds of success in any particular attempt are probably less than fifty percent. But as they say in baseball, “Unless you swing the bat, it’s absolutely certain that you won’t hit the ball.” So, please think about this, and find ways to encourage the talents of the young.

The girl in this photo came up with the idea of baking cookies and taking them to the residents of a nearby nursing home. The lady in the bed is well past 100 years old and hadn’t had a visitor for more than three years.

The girl had no idea she’d run into the lady, of course, and probably wasn’t able to grasp the depth of the situation, but she did a good thing all the same.

A great deal of human suffering has been taking place behind closed doors in our time, in situations like these; it’s a hazard of the modern world. A century ago, the old lady would probably be living in someone’s home. (A grandchild, great nephew or the like.) She would not be cut-off from the observation of life, and she’d be far happier.

* * * * *

No model of human life is perfect, and so, before going back to the mundane, see if you can think of some way to fill-in the cracks of our world’s present arrangements; to gift someone with direct human kindness.

This disabled lady and her husband were having lunch, and the husband was kept from eating because he also had to attend to his wife. Seeing this, their waiter stepped in and took over the feeding duties, allowing his customer to finish his meal.

People do these things, but it usually requires them to “go against the stream” in one way or another. For whatever reason, most humans fear to do anything that they don’t see others doing. And so, every time someone undertakes an independent good action, they are breaking the collective complacency.

Again for whatever reason, these uncomfortable first-actions seem to be required for goodness to spread and thrive.

* * * * *

So, before going back to the mundane, remember a time when you acted on your own, against what you felt everyone else expected of you… a time when you went against the currents and acted first, because you knew it mattered. Spend a moment reliving it.

Two men, in the corner of a gym, with a calculus book. It’s not a big thing, but it’s a deeply effective thing. One many is trying to learn and the other is helping him… one an employee at the business, the other a client. And this was not a one-time event: these two huddle together over the calculus book almost daily.

These are the kinds of interactions – the kinds of relationships – that transcend all the artificial divisions of the world. Humans don’t do well as atomized individuals, but neither do they thrive in enforced groupings. These two men are creating something better than those choices: they are creating voluntary society… chosen and unforced relationships. And those are far healthier than the others.

* * * * *

And so, before going back to the mundane… the world of atomized individuals and enforced groups… please consider the unforced, voluntary relationships in your life. See if being unforced makes you feel differently about them.

This ballerina, Aesha Ash, took a day to go around the very poor (and quite likely dangerous) areas of a city, in her full ballet outfit, so that poor girls could see the possibility of a better future.

Poor kids very easily see no future for themselves save blight and difficulty. To see someone who looks like them, doing something successfully and very well, opens a world of possibilities to them. This is a very potent form of helping the young.

* * * * *

Now, before you go back to the mundane, please consider what you (and/or your friends) might do to help children see something better for themselves. Where and how don’t fundamentally matter; what matters is creating possibilities and hope in some child’s mind… giving them the sight of someone who actually did something and telling them that they can do the same.

On an appropriate evening, this gentleman carried his telescope and some signs to Walmart, and offered people a chance to see the planet Saturn with their own eyes.

To see something beyond the daily mayhem of this world – the loud, demanding images that refuse to be ignored – gives people a vision of something else… and the possibility of something better.

Humans need distant stars to guide by; without them, they can fixate on negativity and see it as inescapable. Inside that condition, progress locks up. This man gifted people with a view to the outside. There are many types of outside views, of course, but he had this one to give, and he gave it.

* * * * *

For a few minutes, before returning to the mundane, consider the things and the possibilities that lay outside of it. It will almost certainly be time well spent.

This bride’s father had died ten years prior to her wedding, but his heart was donated to a gentleman who would have died without it.

That man showed up at her wedding to walk her down the aisle. There is profound gratitude here, flowing both ways. It’s upward swellings of the heart like this that make life worth living and which make all of us better people… better beings.

* * * * *

Now, before you turn back to mundane living, try to do one more uplifting things, even if it’s a very small one. Hold a door open for someone, carry something for them, say a kind word, impart some type of benefit – no matter how small – to someone as you begin your day.

This is an Orthodox priest being true to his profession: standing between a militarized police force and people seeking a redress for their grievances. He is preventing violence at great personal risk.

Over the past few centuries, people with religious vocations have been massively maligned. On one hand, there have been more than a few actual reasons for complaint, and it’s not unreasonable to hold someone to a high standard if they claim to stand in God’s stead. But on the other hand, such attacks have become automatic and even malicious.

Religious people have done great good in the world, and their actions are fully as legitimate as anyone else’s. To flatly ignore all those actions is unfair and unkind.

* * * * *

So, before going back to the mundane, consider the good done by religious people, and especially all the kind and caring religious people whom the public stage expels and ignores. Their deeds matter as much as anyone else’s… whether we share their views or not.