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.