Everything just seems so out of control. The US seems to be tearing itself apart. The world is on fire. We seem to be going backwards when it comes to freedom and human rights. We’ve turned our backs on each other. How do you cope with all this without just giving up?
I have a small circle of focus on my own life. It’s working, and my life is getting better.
In my work, I focus on doing the best possible job. If I succeed at my job, then my customers’ lives are better. That’s how I make the world a better place. It gives me a reason to do my best every day.
What I do is design kitchens. I also bridge the gap between the plan and the execution of the plan. There are lots of little details to pay attention to. When I get everything right, people get new kitchens.
With kitchens the way they want them, they eat well. They have peace in their house. They have social space to invite people over. Everything works smoothly, and they have a solid building block to build their own lives on.
If I try to do more, I might fuck it up. This task of making kitchen rebuild projects go well is the perfect balance between my own competence and the needs of the world. It takes everything I’ve got.
Having the match between my mission and my skills, having the mission be just hard enough to take everything I’ve got, is my own personal recipe for not falling into despair at the state of the world. The thing that bothers me the most is if one of my customers has a problem. I worry more about that than I do about Gaza.