Monday, August 25, 2025
The power of a drop in the bucket
What’s the point of making a contribution or doing my part when it amounts to little more than a drop in the bucket?
You may have heard people say this, or thought it yourself. I know I have.
But lately I’ve been thinking about the cumulative power of those drops. I asked ChatGPT to do the math for me.
Supposing a million people contributed. In terms of the world’s population, that’s a tiny, almost negligible, percentage. But if each contribution was the equivalent of a drop in the bucket, the bucket would soon be overflowing.
- 1 mm drops → ~0.52 L
- 3 mm drops → ~14.1 L
Drops that are 3 mm in diameter scale up in three dimensions from 1 mm drops — hence the massive increase in volume.
What if those drops fell in the form of rain over a period an hour?
- 1 mm drops: ~0.52 mm/hr (very light)
- 2 mm drops: ~4.19 mm/hr (moderate)
- 3 mm drops: ~14.1 mm/hr (heavy)
If you stood in a rainfall of 3 mm drops, you would be drenched. Even 1 mm drops would get you noticeably wet.
Again, one million is not that much when you think in terms of total population. Canada has a population of 40 million. If one million people took part in a movement, that would only be only 2.5 per cent of the population.
Don’t underestimate your contribution. Those drops in the bucket can add up pretty fast.
More posts in the Justice category
