Seneca points out that people tend to use their money to turn around, but they can almost waste time.
There are at least two ways to use this. One is Seneca who thinks he uses his time better than you and me, maybe he did. Another explanation is that for most people, daily life is an unexplored gold mine. Some unfinished tasks represent huge gains, waiting for a short while, second only to elbow grease. Applying wisely ten or fifteen minutes of guidance efforts can also improve your life far more than the salary you receive during the same period.
This principle is most obvious when you use time to fix broken things. The broken things in our lives are constantly charging for benefits. They feel sad, unable to even witness, and they will never run out of any untransmitted feelings. Trying to use a pen with little writing or a vacuum cleaner with poor suction is also terrible, even if it’s a small scale horrible.
Brokenness takes many forms. There are obvious, literally broken forms: leaky faucets, trembling tables, swinging bikes, grated drawers, sticky doors. There are also some more symbolic, more spiritually broken forms: unanswered letters, curved paintings, books without spots on bookshelf, dirty screen protectors on phones peel off in one corner, bulletin boards, covered with outdated reminders.
All the broken things, no matter how easy they are to fix, are levied ongoing welfare expenses. They can cause psychological harm whenever you see or interact with them. The Buddha’s words about human anxiety or suffering are Duca, It refers to a wagon that bypasses uneven axles. The van can still get you from town to town, but the ride is grinding and bumping.
There is no limit on how much damage is lost. They will collect fifty times, five hundred times, many times you tolerate. Even if you are so used to the clumsy desk legs or the lights of a dead refrigerator that you no longer think about it, it can still damage your life, which is a testament to the huge relief you end up fixed. Repairing broken things feels like someone opening a window in a stuffy room.
Fixes usually don’t take long. Small investments have incredible returns: fixing broken things often requires a one-time effort and instantly create sustained returns and end ongoing taxes. It took less than half an hour to replace my mirror, and the leaky faucet took several hours. Now, twelve or more times a day, my mood is biased towards good rather than bad. Some fixes are very fast – it takes seconds or minutes to wipe the grey stain above the light switch to complete everything.
Solving broken things is a better strategy than the traditional self-help goal that is trying to fix You yourselfas you know, have you ever tried any given Monday or January, to get yourself into a higher overall efficiency state. If your New Year resolution has been forgotten, if not, try a clearer and more powerful idea: fix three things. Don’t be determined to do it sometime this year. Make them before the weekend is over.
Some broken things are beyond your control. A broken educational system, dishonest political speech and human stupidity generally will certainly cause psychological harm, but you have little control over it. Other broken things are expensive to repair, such as cracked countertops or sunken garage doors. But more things can be fixed, they are right in front of you. They are now in your bathroom and now on your desk. Every pain is specific and real, and you are close to the end of it. Write them on a list titled “Broken Things” and fix them.
I fixed at least three things last weekend and I will do it again this weekend because it’s easy. The drawer of the rope and charger I kept was not opening and closing smoothly. I threw some old Ethernet cables and power to devices I no longer own and it’s a pleasure to open and close now. I also pulled everything out of the underwater bathroom cabinet and replaced only what I wanted. The same as the shelves where I keep toiletries. It took thirty minutes to record the album tunes and it was all done. It takes a year or more to return the bathroom to its original place. (if I allow).
Sometimes we get used to breaking so that we no longer perceive it. The two white plastic items that connect the handle to my oven door always have old grey dirt on it. My usual oven routine doesn’t remove it, so I’m used to ignoring it. When I cleaned in the “fix the broken thing” mentality the other day, I thought I would work hard to find a real solution. Scrub with a wet magic eraser for a minute and they are like new.
Now it’s clean and I can see that it bothers me every time I use the stove. The mind can only admit harm now. I think this is very common. Maybe the human brain has evolved this effective coping mechanism: the mind despises a situation, but wants to quit in order to move on, background your pain, but still registering it.
But when things are fixed, it is surprising to breathe a sigh of relief. Your pain exceeds your pain. And it’s always close!
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Photos of Yehor Tulinov, David Cain, Mika Baumeister
