I feel more and more as though every year gets to be a bigger and bigger dumpster fire. Life gets in the way a lot and life happens a lot, and most of it is completely outside any of our control. We all have all the anxiety of a starving, exposed mouse left alone in a frozen field, staring down an equally starving hawk. The rich keep getting richer (at the expense of all those who actually do the work), the poor keep getting poorer (and technology makes it harder for them to escape poverty), and whatever remains of the “middle class” is one catastrophe away from poverty themselves.

A sense of deep hopelessness invades a lot of my conversations with many of my friends. Even though we all come from vastly different backgrounds and are spread out across the country, and even the world, with vastly different situations, we’re all struggling in many of the same ways. Companies and corporations continue to force workers to give up more of their bodies, lives, friends, and families for soul-sucking work that won’t even advance the worker’s careers or do anything other than support corporate waste and the greed of the small few. Affordable housing and the American Dream get farther and farther away from each subsequent generation. And those in power really like being in power so they buy lobbyists and politicians to create laws to benefit those greedy few instead of taking care of the actual populace.

With all that in mind, You Have To Start Somewhere.

You can’t go back in time and make minor changes in order to make things easier for yourself now.

You can only start where you are, in this exact situation, at this exact time.

What does that even mean?

Let’s say Life Happened and your physical health deteriorated more than you are comfortable with, but now you want your wardrobe back, or you want to be able to pick up your adorable puppy as they get older, or you want to be healthier in case this truly is the end of the world as we know it. But the issue with getting healthier (so you don’t get out of breath just walking up a flight of stairs or walking to the bus or whatever) is the length of time and the effort required before you start seeing tangible results. When I talk about starting somewhere, all you need to do is a little at a time. Maybe you could find someone whose company you enjoy and you could start by going on a walk around the neighborhood together. If you don’t have anyone local, maybe find someone you could call and both of you can walk around your own areas wherever it’s safe for you to be a pedestrian. This gives you social time while also getting you out of the house and outside.

Getting started is always the hardest part, at least it is for me. But once I’m moving, the laws of physics seem to apply really well, specifically the part about how an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Once I’ve actually started doing something, it tends to be easier for me to maintain it than it does to just sit around and have anxiety about how much things have changed or how hard things are now.

You have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is wherever you are right now.

This applies to everything, even with everything going on in the world right now (and there’s certainly a LOT of things going on in the world right now).

Dissatisfied with the current political climate? Make sure you vote in your primaries and local elections, or even run for office yourself! Attend school board meetings, local community meetings, question and answer sessions with local representatives, email or write letters to your elected officials, and understand that you have a responsibility to make the world a better place for the generations after us, even if all you have the energy for is to vote. Your vote matters and can do more than you think, especially at the local level and in the early parts of major elections.

Feeling lonely all the time? Go to your library and find just one in-person thing that sounds like fun. Look up local craft guilds, hobbies, clubs, or activities you’ve always wanted to learn about, find out where they’re meeting, then go there. Participate in your community. Meet your neighbors. Send physical cards and letters to people you haven’t heard from. Visit assisted living facilities to play board games with people who may not have visitors. Even stacked with disabilities, there’s almost always a way to connect with other humans. And just using the internet won’t cut it, especially not these days.

Find yourself getting stuck all the time and not making progress on that Huge Thing you want to do? Like writing a book or doing a research project? Write 100 words a day, read one research section a day, or break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

There will never be a perfect time to do That Thing. You will never just magically wake up with the drive, motivation, time, and planning to fulfill your life of “if/then” statements.

But you can start somewhere. You can start here. You can start now. You can start with even the smallest thing, because those small things add up to be much bigger things. Every small thing is progress and is good. There will be days in the future where you might feel like you’re taking two steps backward for every one step forward but there really isn’t a better time to take those tiny small steps.

Don’t give up.
Don’t quit.
Take a tiny step.
I believe in you.
Start somewhere.
Start here.
Start now.

And I’ll be there with you, cheering you on, and taking my own small steps 🙂