I read an interesting meme about time travel today on social media. It went something like this… “When people talk about traveling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small, but barely anyone in the present really thinks that by doing something small they can radically change the future.”

We’ve all seen the movie: Someone goes back in time trying to change something for the better. They step on a bug or something and not only do they kill off the dinosaurs, but somehow, they end up becoming their own grandpa. Then, they have to team up with their future friends in the past to set everything right. And the best part is we get flying cars that run on garbage.

Of course, I’m writing this in the present, which, by the time you read this will be my past and your present, but also in my future. (We will just let that sink in for a minute.) Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to take you on my own little time travel story; a story that shows the power of small actions and the radical change those small actions can have.

Cue the sparks, lights flashing, lots of beeping things, flipping switches, wavy lines and such…

Circa 2012… Woahink Lake. Dive #321. There I was, diving along, minding my own business, and then I saw it; a recliner. Yes, a recliner. Not just any recliner though. It was one of those big puffy ones. I imagine it was probably pretty comfortable and it seemed like it was in pretty good shape. But, for some reason, it was in the lake. Really? Really. Someone threw a recliner in the lake. Who does that?

Back in the time machine. 88 miles per hour (which is really fast for a DPV), more sparks and stuff…

Woahink Lake in 2014… Dive #534. I went under the bridge to the wreck of the York. There, I came across a refrigerator in the lake. A. Refrigerator. In. The. Lake. Seriously? Why are people throwing furniture and appliances in the lake? Unbelievable. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Off we go. Pop! Zap! And other sounds effects. To 2015…

Dive #645. This time I was diving by the Wreck of the John Lennon. Years ago, someone put a large mirror down there. I think it was a sliding closet door in another life. And, now the glass is broken and there are large glass shards everywhere. Those are going to be a big problem to remove and a bigger problem for any divers that aren’t careful if they stumble upon them. Why doesn’t someone clean this mess up?

Lightning, wind, thunder… 2016.

Dive #785. Finally! A bunch of us from Eugene Skin Divers Supply got together to Dive Against Debris and we removed that recliner. Turns out it wasn’t all that comfy after all. Got that fridge out too. 63 pounds of glass as well. In fact, we took out 3195 pounds of junk. Great Scott! We should have done this a long time ago. We really should have.

Poof… 2019 again.

Dive #1084. It has been three years since our last Dive Against Debris survey. That’s far too long. So, we did another one. Came back with 3.5 pounds of trash after 3 dives. Wait, what? 3.5 pounds? Yep. Wow, we actually made a difference.

So, now that we’re back to the present, here’s the point of this little story: Two small actions in the past made two big differences in completely different ways. The first was when someone tossed a recliner in the lake. No one thought we could make a difference, so we did nothing. Turns out, our inaction actually made the problem worse. The radical change; over time more than a ton and a half of marine debris piled up in the lake.

The next small action; finally deciding to do something about that recliner. It took a bit of planning, but we marshaled the resources we needed and we made a pretty big difference. It wasn’t until three years later that I truly realized the actual impact of what we did that day in 2016. Sure, hauling out 3195 pounds of garbage sounds impressive, but the really impressive thing is after three years, it took three dives to find 3.5 pounds of marine debris.

Something changed between those two surveys. Divers started taking pride in our lake again and they started picking up the small bits of trash on each dive they did. The radical change; a 99.89% reduction in marine debris in the lake.

I wish we had been doing Dive Against Debris survey dives at our Woahink Lake dive site these past three years. It would have been interesting to have the data and Project AWARE really wants that data too. But, as much as the movies make it seem possible, we can’t change the past. What we can do is gather the data on our future dives and make #EveryDiveaSurveyDive. The small changes we make now will radically change the future. It’s up to us what kind of change we make.