Old age has made me more aware that many national and international events play out more as farce than tragedy, with the comedy heavily dependent on irony for its laughs.

The same folks who want to control the climate zip about the world in private jets. The elected representatives invested with “the power of the purse,” rattle on about helping the economy through cuts and spending, yet can’t put together an annual budget, leaving America in the hole for $38 trillion and counting. The combined forces of government and teachers’ unions with their vast sums of money claim to know best about educating America’s children, yet student test scores across the board continue sinking.

That’s just a short list of hubris colliding with reality. In these cases, much is promised, but little is delivered, and more often, the whole shebang goes south, producing results contrary to their promises.

From ancient times until now, wise men and women who wanted to make the world a better place didn’t start with some grandiose plan for others. Instead, they practiced the “make your bed” philosophy, where real change most often starts with self-improvement.

Here are seven simple actions in that “make your bed” vein that will brighten the corner where you are and make the world a better place.

Return the grocery store cart to its proper place. There they sit in the store’s lot, solitary grocery carts simply abandoned, blocking spots intended for parking and threatening to roll into cars. When you’re finished with the cart, take it to the collection point. If this involves some walking, look at it as exercise.

Offer someone a sincere compliment. “My child,” Mark Twain wrote to Gertrude Natkin in 1906, “I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat.” Whether delivered to your spouse, a child, or the barista at the coffee shop, that bouquet of words, even if it’s only a single rose, can bring sunshine to someone’s day.

Say “I love you” and mean it. In all too many relationships, those three syllables are rarely voiced. Your parents, a sibling, your husband or wife, anyone from a crusty old uncle to the light of your life: the words fit all sizes.

Bring cookies for sharing to work or school. No kitchen duty required. Your local bakery or grocery store does all the work while all you have to do is put down a few dollars and show up with the cookies. Chocolate chip is my cookie of choice, but your own favorite will do just as well. Who doesn’t love a cookie?

Do a good deed. This one comes straight out of the old Boy Scout Handbook. Holding the door open for a mom with three kids, letting someone carrying just milk and bread cut ahead of you at the grocery store, offering an attentive ear to a downhearted fellow employee: all add a little polish to the tarnished world.

Go the speed limit or faster in the left-hand lane. Lefty dawdlers on the highway sometimes seem oblivious to the drivers passing them on the right, many of whom are shaking their fists, saluting with one finger, or cursing. If you want to go the speed limit or below, stick to the right lane. This should be a no-brainer.

Avoid putting your phone on speaker while in a café. Believe me, no one wants to hear about your latest real estate deal, your medical problems in your nether regions, or the details of your spat with your girlfriend – and I’ve heard all three. Either leave the café for the phone call, or drift into a corner and moderate your voice.

And here’s one extra suggestion, a lagniappe guaranteed to dust away some cobwebs from the home or workplace:

Try to go one day without complaining. This is the toughest of all for most of us. Take away their grumbles and grousing, and some people would fall mute as a stone. Mosquitoes communicate by whining, but that’s a turn-off for human beings. Complaining is also contagious, but we can stop that virus in its tracks by guarding our words.

Start with some little things, add your own to the list, and the world makes way more sense and becomes much more manageable.

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News.

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