virescit vulnere virtus

But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when that 2 minutes seems exhausting.  Doing ten minutes of yoga is better than 10 minutes of sitting when 30 minutes of cardio sounds impossible.  Changing my clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible.  Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because I don’t have the energy to go anywhere.

If you really believe harm is bad, and eliminating harm is a worthy goal, you have to start with small steps: eliminate a small harm, not all harms all at once. Reduce a great harm a little, perhaps by helping one individual impacted by that harm, and then another individual, and another... You cannot tackle all harm at once; you must take smaller bites. Set this reality against your need to feel right & correct & pure & perfect. Reducing some harm instead of all harm is not failure! You are not a failure! You may fail now and again, but failing once or twice or ten thousand times doesn't change the fact that you can still try again and succeed! You are not a failure even when you fail to reach your impossible goal of perfection.

"[Al Smith] had no patience for reformers who didn’t understand the importance of practical politics in getting things done, who refused to compromise, who insisted on having the bill as it was written, who raged loudly at injustice who fought single-mindedly for an unattainable ideal. Their pigheadedness had the effect of dragging to political destruction politicians to listened to them, of ruining careers men had taken years to build. He had seen it happen. And more important, what was the inevitable result of their efforts?