One Practical Thing: Solve One of Your Small Problems

There's an end table on the side of my couch where I always sit. It's where I rest my drink. It's where my phone sits. Over the arm of the couch, I draped the charging cables for my phone and laptop. They fell down constantly, necessitating a very awkward lean over the couch arm and stretch behind the table to retrieve them. I did nothing to alleviate this situation for, what is in retrospect, a ridiculous number of years.

Everything that needed to exist to solve this problem in a simple, straightforward way existed. The solution was easily accessible. It wasn't expensive.

And yet, taking the time and money involved in fixing this small problem that only affected me felt like a waste of time that I needed to be spending elsewhere given everything and everyone I am responsible for. It was an entirely survivable inconvenience so it felt like it it just didn't matter. There are other more important things to deal with. I was getting the cords. I was fine.

It was silly, but that's how I felt. Like I would be taking away time from more important things to address something that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Except it did. Every time those cords fell or the cats knocked them down or I had to bend and twist to get them. Each time I sat down thinking I was settled and had everything I needed in reach only to see them fall or discover their absence, it was One More Thing—granted a small one, but nonetheless still a thing—to deal with on top of everything. Sometimes, even the smallest One More Thing is what depletes the last bit of energy to deal with the day.

I don't even remember the catalyst for addressing it. I just finally reached the day where those cords falling down was truly the last One More Thing that I could deal with. I ordered some cord managers, affixed them to the back of the end table and the problem was solved so simply that it was, frankly, stupid that I hadn't already done so.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by everything that we have to navigate. To feel like our smallest problems aren't important. Just because the world and life has serious, big problems doesn't mean you can't have small problems. Just because a problem is small doesn't mean that it's not still a problem. Just because you're the only one affected doesn't mean that it's not important enough to solve.

There's no shortage of challenges and difficulties down the road we're traveling now. Our energy and attention is being pulled in many directions and exhausted in most of them. We're faced with dozens of overlapping and interdependent problems, ideologies, and conflicting values—or lack thereof. We feel the need to care and act for so many things. But our responsibilities to and our hope for the world around us do not mean we owe every single piece of ourself to those responsibilities and dreams.

Empathy and care for others is incredibly important and feels, terrifyingly, diminishing in our communities. But reserving some small measure of empathy for ourselves is also required for us to be able to act for others and on the issues and challenges we all face.

One Practical Thing

Think about something small that happens on a recurring basis in your life that you could address with some small amount of time or money. Something that is fixable that you've just not dealt with because it has felt inconsequential in the big picture.

Implement a fix that addresses the problem moving forward or set aside some small budget on a regular basis that you can apply to removing the challenge or creating convenience that frees up some fraction of your energy or time.

Give yourself the time or resources to go address this inconvenience.

One Practical Thing is a series of posts about practical, tactical actions for personal wellbeing, building community, contributing to the collective good and protecting vulnerable people, places and things.