Activism Happens in the Quiet

On Planting Trees for Future Generations

There’s an old quote that goes something like this: “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” The provenance of this quote is suspect at best; I’ve mostly frequently heard it referenced as a Greek proverb, but there’s also a nearly identical Chinese proverb, a Turkish adage, and even a reference to a 19th century French sermon.

Wherever it came from, the point is this: Society (what a big, nebulous concept) depends on people engaging in work for which they don’t receive a direct benefit.

Of course, we see this kind of labor all the time. It’s the work that seems mundane and routine until you realize that it’s actually quite profound. In our everyday lives, this sometimes shows up as invisible labor, the caregiving that the world depends on but doesn’t exactly compensate for.

We all perform labor that doesn’t see immediate results. We start writing on a teeny little blog and hope it grows into something real. We nurture relationships, adopt furry friends, or raise children and breathe a sigh of relief when they celebrate a first birthday, a fifth birthday, an eighteen birthday, and so on. We start gardens, spending hours with our hands in the dirt before our seeds produce their first vegetable.

We see this too with activism. Maybe you don’t think of yourself as an activist, and that’s okay. After all, activism has a connotation of campaigning, of protesting, of being loud and chaining yourself to trees.

But activism isn’t just what happens in the loud— it’s also what happens in the quiet.

If you have hopes and dreams for the world and are working to make these dreams a reality— that’s activism. If you go out of your way to shop small, fair trade, or low-waste, that’s activism. If you prioritize slow living, slow fashion, repurposing, or upcycling, that’s activism. If you urge your office to ditch the disposable cutlery or ask your child’s school to install reusable water bottle stations, guess what? That’s activism.

We show our love— our love for each other and for the Earth— in a million different ways. Some people are meant to be the loud ones, the Greta Thunberg’s of the world.

But for some of us? The work is in the reading, the quiet conversations, the small shifts in our own behavior. The lived example we provide to those we interact with.

The work matters, regardless of the result.

I think we are conditioned to want to see immediate results from our labor. Especially in activism, the stakes are so high, the emotions so raw. It’s easy to feel like we are taking two steps forward, one step back— or worse, big policy shifts (or lack thereof) can feel like two, three, or twenty steps back.

But please know this. The shifts that you are making— to minimize, to shop small or fair trade, to pursue non-toxic and low-waste living, to be more intentional with your time and attention— all of these shifts will have a profound impact on your and your loved ones’ lives.

And as a collective, we see the results— the fruits of our labor, in you will— in small ways, because cultural shifts have a funny way of radiating beyond our own individual actions.

It shows up the first time you get a birthday party invitation that asks for “pre-loved” gifts for the birthday girl.

It shows up the first time your friend casually mentions they’ve stopped supporting fast fashion.

It shows up when you see your favorite small businesses survive another year.

These aren’t big shifts on their own, but they are consequential nonetheless.

And we should celebrate the wins, but the value of the work isn’t just in the outcome. It’s also in the process. There’s a saying I’ve used here before, one I’ve emotionally returned to time and time again: I need to be able to tell my children I did not stay silent.

That I wasn’t silent when greed and profit took precedence over health and safety. That I wasn’t silent when I watched children, barely older than my own, working in mines and factories to satiate our seemingly endless desire for cheap, disposable goods. That I took action against needless deforestation and reckless pollution.

The outcome matters, because the consequences of not changing— everything from micro-plastics in our food system and cancer-causing chemicals in our furniture to rising sea levels and extreme weather events, will bring you to your knees if you spend too much time thinking about it.

But the full breadth of change we require may not come tomorrow, or even in our lifetime. And I have to be okay with doing the work anyway, even if I never personally see the full results. Because the truth is this: The next generation of change-makers are watching us.

You don’t have to be a parent to be involved in this important work— grandparents, aunts and uncles, beloved teachers, neighbors, and family friends can all have an enormous influence. And even if you have managed to never directly cross paths with a child, they may read about your work in an opinion piece, may see you shopping with a reusable bag at the grocery store. They may witness you planting a tree— and that tree, well, it could change everything.