Shaziya Khan

It started with a banana peel and a quiet sort of guilt.I had just watched a documentary about landfills, the kind that leaves you staring at your dinner scraps like they're secrets you've been hiding from the earth. So instead of tossing the peel into the dustbin, I searched "how to compost at home" and began a journey that felt small, maybe even silly, but quietly revolutionary.Because what is compost, really? It's rot. It's decay. But it's also rebirth. A second chance. An act of returning what never truly belonged to us. And for me, it became a metaphor for something bigger: a way to survive the overwhelming grief of a planet unraveling. The more I composted, the more I began to notice the waste I created. The things I threw away without thought. The packaging, the plastics, the perfectly edible food I let go bad because convenience had become a habit. I had been taught to consume, not to care.But composting isn't just about sorting trash. It's about noticing. It's about pausing. It's about saying: "You matter", to the peel, to the soil, to the worm. I started cutting back on plastic. I carried cloth bags. I saved vegetable water for plants. I reused, recycled, and learned to fix things instead of replacing them.These were not loud, impressive acts. But they were mine. They made me feel like I was doing something, anything, in a world where it often feels like nothing we do is enough.The truth is, climate change is overwhelming. The glaciers are melting. The oceans are choking. Entire species are vanishing. What difference does one compost bin in one apartment make?Maybe none. But maybe that's not the point. Hope isn't always loud. Sometimes it's a quiet pile of soil, rich and dark and smelling like rain. Sometimes it's a seedling that pushes through compost-rich earth and says, "I'm still here." Sometimes it's choosing to care even when the headlines tell you not to bother.I once read that composting is a way of loving the future. It means believing there will be a future. That someone, someday, might plant tomatoes in the ground you kept alive. That even in decay, there's possibility.And that's the radical part. Because it's easy to give up. To scroll past wildfires and floods and plastic-choked rivers and believe we're too far gone. But small actions are not small when they are multiplied by millions. And even if the world doesn't notice, the soil does. This isn't a call for perfection. It's a call tor presence. The climate crisis isn't just a technical issue, it's emotional. It's about grief and guilt and feeling helpless. But it's also about finding meaning in the smallest acts. About building resilience in our homes, our habits, and our hearts.It's about turning banana peels into soil.And soil into tomatoes. And tomatoes into meals shared with others who also believe that change can grow from the ground up.

There's a woman I pass almost every day on my way to the market. She stands on the roadside, bent over a pile ofvegetables, arranging them with care. Her hands move quickly, but her eyes, her eyes always look tired. Not the kind of tired that comes after a long day, but the kind that builds over years. A quiet exhaustion stitched into her bones.She is one of the many. The unnoticed. The ones who carry the weight of cities, families, and systems-without recognition, without rest, and often, without fair reward.We live in a world held up by invisible hands.Everywhere you look, the most essential work is being done by the most undervalued people. The domestic workers who clean homes and raise children they didn't birth. The waste collectors who clear our streets before dawn. The farmers who bend in the sun to grow our food. The women who wake before their families and sleep last, running homes like silent engines.They are the foundation. But we rarely speak their names. We rarely know their stories.Why?Because their lives don't fit into our definition of "success." Because we've built a society where worth is measured by visibility, influence, and income, not by service, sacrifice, or resilience.Inequality isn't just about income gaps. It's about who gets remembered and who gets erased. It's about whose pain is heard and whose is dismissed as "normal!" The problem isn't that people aren't working hard enough. It's that their hard work has been normalized into silence.During the pandemic, we clapped for essential workers. We called them heroes. But now, as the noise faded, so did our gratitude. The same nurses, sweepers, and sellers have gone back to being invisible. Their struggles remain, but our attention has moved on.It makes you wonder,what kind of justice claps only when it's convenient?We can't talk about community without talking about labor. And we can't talk about labor without confronting class, gender, and dignity.Why is the work that sustains us the least paid? Why is caregiving seen as a woman's duty, not a profession? Why do we call people "unskilled" simply because their expertise isn't taught in classrooms?I don't have all the answers. But I know that true change begins with uncomfortable questions.We need to shift our lens. To redefine what we consider valuable. To start seeing people not for how loudly they speak, but for how much they carry.Somewhere along the way, we stopped looking.We became a society that celebrates the ones who shine while forgetting the ones who hold the light. But if justice means anything, it must mean this: to bring the invisible into view. To give dignity where it's long been denied. To speak not for people, but with them. And most importantly, to listen.I think about that woman by the vegetable cart often.She doesn't have a Linkedin profile or a powerful platform. But she teaches every day, through endurance, through patience, through quiet strength.Maybe the future isn't about building something new. Maybe it's about finally honoring what's already there.We all have a role to play in this.Sometimes it's as small as saying thank you. Sometimes it's as large as demanding better policies, wages, and protections. But always, it begins with seeing. Really seeing.Because once you see, you can't unsee.And once you care, you begin to change the world, even if it's just one person at a time.

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Shaziya Khan

Compost and Other Forms of Hope

Invisible Hands - The Ones Who Holds Us Up