Focus on What You Can Change
In April of 2020, my darling friend Marilee and I were commiserating about the stress of the world. About how suddenly fraught it felt to get groceries. How isolating to be trapped at home. Marilee and her husband Paul have a business, Spotlight Sojourns, which requires them to spend a lot of time traveling around the world. No travel, no leaving the house, was stressful. Paul made the Venn diagram above, and Marilee shared it with me.
I was reminded of Paul’s diagram by Anne’s recent post, where she shared a quote that I liked a lot:
“Caring about everything is a disaster. Caring about nothing is also a disaster. Nurture the small pocket of things that truly matter to you.” ~ James Clear
Is there a subtle difference between Paul’s advice and Clear’s quote? There are things that matter to us, perhaps a lot, but over which we have no control. We can still care about them, but might we lessen our anxiety by understanding that we cannot change it, and letting some of that go? Yesterday’s yoga practice was ‘Yoga for Anxiety and Stress’, which I found fitting for the day before the inauguration. Toward the end of the practice, Adriene said something about ‘surrendering to that which we cannot change.’ I’ve thought a lot about the term ‘Surrender’. I made it my word of the year once, though I failed miserably. The thing is, it’s not a call to surrender and give up. Instead, I think it is a call to accept that you cannot change it, and let that fact go. I struggled to surrender to the fact that my parents were dead, because it felt like accepting the fact of it meant that I was OK with it. It doesn’t. It doesn’t mean that you are OK with the loss, it just means that you can understand that it is real. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, other than that this is a concept that I really struggle with. I’m working on it.
Back to the inauguration. (Another small aside to complain bitterly about how fitting and wonderful it would have been to have Harris’ inauguration on the day we commemorate the work of Martin Luther King Jr., and how SHITTY it is to have Trump’s on this day. SHITTY.) I don’t want to go back to the stress that I felt during Trump’s first presidency. I don’t want to go back to feeling like the world is on fire. (Let’s ignore the fact that it may very well be on fire, that for many people Trump becoming President will throw fuel on the flames.) Obviously I care about the world in which I live, about my government and my country. But I cannot stop Trump from becoming President. I tried. I voted, I wrote letters to voters in swing states. He still won. What, then, can I control? Where can I focus my energy? I can vote, in every election. I can write letters to officials and to potential voters and try to effect the change I want to see in my community, in my neighborhood, and in my state. I can try to help elect people who share my values and concerns in other communities, neighborhoods and states. I can donate and volunteer for causes that work towards justice and a kinder world. These are the things that I can do. I can also take care of my mental health, by practicing yoga, by not doom scrolling the news, by taking a daily walk and getting fresh air and sunshine. By eating nutritious food and enjoying my family and friends. By reading good books and visiting your blogs. By coming here and sharing my thoughts with you.
Speaking of very small, very local change. Long time readers know that a big apartment building, 286 units I think, recently replaced the 5 dilapidated single family homes on our small dead-end street. This has caused the predicted traffic and parking issues, one of which is that there is an area in front of the building that is zoned for passenger drop off and pick up, but people park there all day, sometimes for multiple days. This is a problem because then when Uber eats or a ride share or whatever comes to drop off/pick up, the spot that should be available for them is not, and so they end up double parking or parking in our driveway, which means we have to go around them, sometimes blindly, and the road isn’t big enough for that, and a couple of head on collisions have been narrowly avoided. A while ago, I asked a Sheriff’s deputy who was here how we could get help with this. He said that he really couldn’t ticket the people parked there, because there was no sign giving a time limit. He suggested that we might have luck writing to our dept. of Public Works. Which I did. I sent pictures, and explained the situation and asked for their help. I didn’t hear anything from them, and in the past when I have contacted them with other issues, they have gotten back to me. So I found an old email with a person’s name and email address, and forwarded my original email to that person, asking whether anyone had seen it or not. This time I did receive a reply, saying that they would look into it. Fast forward several months, and last week, a sign was posted saying ‘5 minute parking’. The other day, Ted and I were walking and saw that the cars that were parked there were the same ones that had been there when we left an hour earlier, and we went inside to talk to the leasing agent. She said that it is against their policy to enforce the regulation on the public road, but we were free to call the sheriff on our own. Frustrating, I don’t want to be the person to always deal with this stuff, though I have several times. ANYWAY, yesterday we were returning from our walk and there was a deputy ticketing the cars that had been there for hours! YAY! There is hope in sight! Small victories.
How about you? Any small victories in your life lately? Are you stressed out about the direction so much of the world is going? How are you choosing to handle that stress? How will you resist the regime, while not giving up the joy that is still very much there?
10 Comments
Nicole MacPherson
J, I love what you have to say. I agree with you on surrender – some things you just can’t change. In 2020 I thought of the serenity prayer basically every day. Courage to change what you can but the serenity to accept those we can’t change. That doesn’t mean it’s okay! But it means that we can put our focus where we can change things. I just love everything about this post, J, thank you. xo
Lisa’s Yarns
I need to be reminded of this idea of surrendering to things. I kind of reminds me of something I discussed when I was last in therapy called radical acceptance. The idea is to accept things so you can move on or let go of that weight, but accepting them doesn’t mean that what happened is OK. It’s hard to explain the concept and even harder to implement.
Part of me wants to act like a defiant toddler and cross her arms and say: well this is what you wanted to all the people who voted for him, many of which voted against their best interests.
Elisabeth
You always have the BEST graphics (I feel like a picture can often say 1,000 words). So often I try to control everything – including things that don’t matter.
Thinking of you today; I realize it’s a rough one in the US.
Michelle G.
This was just the post I needed to read this morning, so thank you for that. Dave Chappelle said something quite brilliant on SNL – “The presidency is no place for petty people, so D.T. — I know you watch the show — man, remember, whether people voted for you or not, they’re all counting on you; whether they like you or not, they’re all counting on you. The whole world is counting on you.” I sure hope he did hear that.
And good for you for pushing for a small change that affects you and other people positively! Little things do make a difference!
Maya
I so needed to read this post today, Julie… From the diagram to the quotes, to your thoughts about today…
We’ll get through this. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so it does make sense to pace ourselves. XO
AC
The Venn diagram and the Clear quote make a nice pair. It is easier to contemplte than do, but we can try. It is difficult to stay off the news, but I will try for at least the remainder of this day. This afternoon’s root canal gives me enough to be anxious about today.
Ted
As you told me yesterday, you’d like to take some credit for the parking issue win. I said, “Take it all! It was all you!” I was very pleased that the Sheriff’s Deputy was so receptive to our issues when we spoke to him. There was a sense of “Well, finally!” when we came home and saw those vehicles with parking tickets.
As far as the bigger things go, I’ve been thinking about how we defend and grow what previous generations were able to fight for and enact since 1964-65. A lot of it means getting out of our comfort zones, and doing atypical things that are different from the old techniques.
The other part is opposing the tech bro “Let’s really hijack the brains of the plebeians” efforts . That means making a choice on whether you keep giving these companies so much valuable data for free so you can stay connected to your friends, or realizing that your connections to your family and friends don’t have to be mediated through Meta or X or TikTok or…pick your social media platform.
Noemi
This is a lovely post about some hard, complicated, awful shit. The world is burning and this administration is going to throw fuel on those fires (and start so many more), and we also can’t make ourselves crazy about what we can’t change. It’s a really hard place to be and I have no idea how to be there. But I appreciate people (like you) who are thinking about it and sharing their perspective. It helps me to not stick my head in the sand quite so deep. I need to get involved in some local causes, tangible and real issues that affect people where I live and work. Thank you for the reminder. (And I love that you did something about that parking nightmare. That would have driven me insane but I’m not sure I would have known how to do something about it. I love that you took those steps and saw how it made a difference!)
nance
Oh, Julie. You really are the best. This is exactly how I feel and truly what I wanted/needed to read today. I still chafe at the word Surrender; I prefer the term Letting Go. Do they mean the same thing as you explained them? Yes, yes they do. But being a Word Nerd, the context is everything to me in this case.
I’m so pleased that you had your Parking Place Victory! I had a similar one just this past week! You’ve inspired me to write a post about it, so I won’t share about it here and now. But you continue to inspire me and make me so very, very glad that we are friends.
I hope with all my heart that we get a chance to spend time together in person again. Thanks for this post and for the companionship of your heart.
Margaret
I like your theme of surrendering to that which we cannot change and focusing on small victories or actions that we can control. To be honest, I’m having a tough time with it. I’m still distraught and disappointed that so many Americans voted for Trump when it was blatantly obvious (to those not brainwashed by Fox) that he was unfit and dangerous.