“It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” -Gandhi
The life long activists I have known understood Gandhi’s call to “renounce the fruit of our actions,” which means to base our lives on duty and not despair that the seeds we plant do not grow within our short life span. Nothing great is accomplished in one life time. Whoever rocked Martin Luther King in the cradle and taught him what it means to be a human being was an essential part of winning freedoms he or she never saw. That unknown hero simply did his or her duty.
At the foundational times of history, our words and actions may seem futile, but they are laying the ground work for those who will come afterward. The seed cannot blossom tomorrow, if someone does not break ground today.