My parents and I strolled down the canal-lined streets of Amsterdam, watching the bicyclists wiz by, and taking in the fresh morning air before it becomes clouded with the odor of cigarettes and marijuana. It was June and we were in the midst of another busy day of touring the city. We headed towards a stop we had all been eagerly anticipating: the Amsterdam Museum. As big history fans, we were excited to tour a museum dedicated to sharing the history of its unique namesake city. We wound through the streets toward the center of town and finally came upon the red-brick building we had been searching for. I walked ahead of my parents, down through the narrow passageway between two wings of the museum and spotted the doors that would take us inside.

A lone ant marches across the ground, terrified and alone. It wonders why it is still searching for food while the rest of the colony has given up. It wonders what difference it could possibly have; after all, it’s just one ant.

I grabbed the glistening door-handle and pulled open the heavy wooden door. Inside, my eyes alighted upon a massive marble staircase, and I saw that it led up to the desk where we will present our iAmsterdam passes to be granted access to the museum. I held the door open for my mom and dad, and as I walked in myself, I noticed something my eyes had glossed over in my first appraisal of the room. Standing at the bottom of the staircase was an elderly woman. She wore a short pink trench coat the color of a sunset with a cream purse dangling from her left arm, and had hair so curly and white it looked like lamb’s wool. She was at least eighty years of age, and held tight to her walker. Her eyes gazed upwards, watching her family mount the stairs ahead of her while she struggled to lift her walker onto the unusually high first step.

The ant continues trudging along. Suddenly, it discovers abandoned crumbs of food. It picks up one of the crumbs, and heads back the way it came.

As I absorbed this scene unfolding, I saw my parents give each other a split second glance before they quickly moved over to the woman. Without any hesitation, my mom grabbed the woman’s left arm, my father grabbed her walker and her right arm, and they led her up those daunting marble steps. Though she spoke no English, the elderly woman’s face said more than she could possibly have communicated with words. A look of pure gratitude came over her, her eyes brimmed with tears, and she kept repeating a word in Dutch that we interpreted to mean “thank you”.

The ant drops the first morsel of food in the nearly empty, cavernous store room. It debates the sense in going back for more when it can’t imagine its actions having an impact, but then silences those negative thoughts. It knows what it needs to do, minute impact or not. It turns around and begins the trek all over again.

The woman’s family, who had reached the top long ago, and were chatting as they waited for her, looked down on this scene in surprise as if it never occurred to them to help their elderly mother. Their surprise quickly transformed to embarrassment, eyes widening and cheeks reddening as they realized their egregious error. They rushed down the four or five steps left between them and their mother, and joined my parents in the effort to guide her up to the top. Once they were all the way up, the woman grasped my parents’ hands with both of her own, looked directly in their eyes, and once more said something in Dutch. She said it slowly and emphatically; there was no mistaking her meaning: “Thank you very much.” Her family led her away and we proceeded on into the museum, continuing on with our day and our plans, never to see the elderly woman again.

As it deposits the small bit of food and turns around to make the journey back once again, another ant watches. It takes its place behind the first and soon their procession grows as more and more ants join in. Food is quickly piling up, and the cavernous storeroom is now more like a cozy den. Where there once was one ant, there are now one hundred working together on their simple task all due to the actions of a single ant that initially thought it could not make a difference.

It was such a simple act, helping an unsteady, old woman with a walker up a flight of stairs. The whole procedure lasted perhaps five minutes from my parents first, “Let me help you,” to our final parting of ways. Despite these facts, this whole instance has been frozen in my mind for the past three years, and the expression on the lady’s face as my parents were helping her up the steps has been indelibly etched onto my memory. I realized in that instant that the choice to complete an ordinary task, like helping an old woman up some stairs or scouring the ground for food, could have a profound impact not only the person directly affected, but all those around.

It would have been easy for my mom and dad to walk right on by the old woman. It would have been easy to assume that she would make it just fine. It would have been easy to think that should she truly need help, her family would come back for her. It would have been easy to justify leaving her to struggle by buying into the belief that we could not make any more difference than a single ant.

Too many people fall victim to such thoughts, the thoughts that tell them that their miniscule display of goodness is useless in a world ridden with evil. People make statements such as, “It doesn’t matter, it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway,” or, “I just didn’t see how I could help.” But just as one ant is able to carry what food it can and inspire others to join, so too can people serve others in the little ways they can and demonstrate to others how to do the same. In this way, even the most minute speck of light someone shines into the darkness can be multiplied and eventually have a cumulative effect as immensely bright as the sun.

While my parents didn’t cure cancer or end world hunger, they did what they could where they saw a need. Not only did they have such an impact on the elderly Dutch lady that they made her eyes well with tears of gratitude, but in the process they also demonstrated to her family and myself that we could do that as well. That experience taught me to look for simple ways to help those around me, and to always remember that by setting the example, I can motivate others to do the same.