I Was Emotionally Exhausted — Until My Co-Worker Taught Me The 'Donut Of Concern' Trick
How to keep on keeping on when so much feels beyond our control.
Beyza Yurtkuran | Unsplash For months now, I’ve been wanting to hire a carpet cleaner. The finished basement room where I sleep, work, and write has wall-to-wall carpet, which was starting look, well, kind of gross. But it was one of those things I could never seem to prioritize amid the dozens (hundreds?) of other things that demanded my money and attention.
Finally, last week, I just got it done. Found a recommendation, booked an appointment, and someone came in in the next day.
I’m not going to claim that my clean carpets are life-changing, per se, but now, every time I get up from my desk, I feel like dancing. The floor beneath my feet feels so pure, so fresh, so unblemished.
It’s a small victory, I know. My clean carpets will do nothing to stave off the looming threat of dictatorship or climate change, or financial collapse. Maybe it was even selfish of me to care about the cleanliness of my carpets when basic human rights are on the chopping block.
I know I’m not the only one struggling with this feeling of paralysis against a backdrop of utter mayhem.
Inside Creative House / Shutterstock
I still have children to raise, a job to show up for, bills to pay, and a divorce to muddle through. Could I carve out a few minutes to call my Senator? Maybe, but for what? I’ve lost faith in all our institutions. Congress won’t save us.
It’s not that I’m apathetic; I’m overwhelmed. National and global crises loom so large; the stakes are so high. But I can’t even make a Saturday protest — they conflict with my daughter’s track meets.
My co-worker uses an analogy he calls the donut of concern.
On the outer fringes is all the garbage going down in Washington. It’s the stuff that is likely to outrage us the most, and the stuff over which we have the least control. He recommends focusing our efforts in the center of the donut where we can see the effects of our actions.
That means if calling lawmakers is your thing, call your city council or your state legislators (or better yet, go talk to them in person!) Rally for the neighbor, or the students at your kids’ school, who might be in danger of being deported. Organize a neighborhood cleanup. Join the PTA.
Effective resistance movements are built on in-person networks of people who have a foundation of trust. Effective dictatorships sow distrust and isolation. Let’s build the networks and the trust now. We don’t have to do all of it at once. We can pick a thing. Truth be told, I haven’t followed my advice yet.
Even the possibilities for taking action within walking distance from my home are a bit overwhelming.
I think I’ll start with another summer block party. There are few things better in life than eating hot dogs with neighbors in the middle of the street, and I’m not going to let anyone take away my joy. Whether in our resistance or just in our day-to-day life, let’s not avoid the things that spark it out of a misplaced sense of guilt.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s an expanse of clean carpet that’s beckoning me to dance.
Kerala Taylor is an award-winning writer and co-owner of a worker-owned marketing agency. Her weekly stories are dedicated to interrupting notions of what it means to be a mother, woman, worker, and wife. She writes on Medium and has recently launched a Substack publication, Mom, Interrupted.
