be a street sweeper: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

My favorite quote by Dr. Martin Luther King is about work, and it has been my favorite quote for over twenty years, which is interesting, because my “work” has changed dramatically in those years. (For example, I used to never feel the need to put quote marks around the word “work.”)

When I was an English instructor, I deeply loved my career and felt I was doing something good: helping people find their confidence and their voice, helping them develop skills that would serve them well for life. This meaningful work inspired me to bring my best self to class every day.

However, when I changed paths to take care of a home and a family while starting my creative business, I felt so terribly small and insignificant. I never felt like I was doing “enough” and wondered how my life contributed at all to the world. Even so, this quote remained my favorite.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Initially, I felt MLK told me: you have important and meaningful work that helps others, let that inspire you to give it your all every day. But in my insular domestic and creative life, it suggested to me that I might feel small, but how I did my work mattered.

The quote is not about perfection, at least not for me. He was direct with his original audience that they would have to aim for perfection to get any chance of acceptance and success, and that they should strive for such achievement. He spoke to junior high school students in the late 60s facing racism and sexism that is on the rise today, but was even more overt, sanctioned, and normalized then.

For me, rather than aiming for perfection or striving for barrier-breaking achievement, the quote is about ongoing commitment to effort and intention. No more whining about feeling small: do the work in front of me and do it well.

If the work in front of me is, as a typical day might be: taking care of others, working on a drawing, drafting an essay, making meals, and cleaning up, then I know this will not make headlines or catch the attention of heads of state. But it is the work in front of me.

For over a decade, I’ve carried this idea with me to the grocery store, post office, library, medical offices, and schools I frequent each week. No matter how I’m personally feeling that day, I commit to opening doors for people, smiling, helping where I can, complimenting the good things I see.

Some days, it’s just a day. Some days, I’ll admit, I fake it, but only when I’m driving and feeling stressed. I figure my windshield has enough glare to hide that my smile is fake as I let someone turn in front of me. But other days, I get glimmers of how daily acts matter. For example, I was once stopped by a woman jogging at the park who told me it meant so much to her that I had smiled at her when we’d passed on the previous lap. That’s it. I’d simply smiled at her–genuinely because, hey, we’re both out there sweating our booties off–and it mattered to her, enough to stop me, a total stranger, and say so.

Truthfully, the evidence that my “work” matters, is subtle and infrequent. Probably the same for a street sweeper. It’s easier for me to see how I’m not making any noticeable change to the problems I perceive in the world. But that’s part of the reason I love this quote. I read it and think–just keep going. Keep trying. Keep sweeping as best as I can. Stay committed and have faith that my “work” matters, and doing it as best as I can is important.

I hope daily effort builds over time. In Animal Dreams, one of Barabara Kingsolver’s earliest novels, she says:

The daily work–that goes on, and it adds up. It goes into the ground, into crops, into children’s bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don’t get lost.

While I’ll keep an eye open for bigger and better ways to contribute to this world, I’ll keep sweeping the streets of my small corner, doing my work in hopes that it adds a little light and cultivates some cheer for others.

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Have a wonderful Martin Luther King Day. If you’d like to read the short speech “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint” where my favorite quote comes from, I found it at the Seattle Times from 2017, which I am trusting is accurate, even though there is a typo in the text.

Thank you, as always, for following my creative journey!
–TRISTA