From parenting to a broken dishwasher, it’s often enough just to stop, and look, and wait
The other day, I fixed a problem with the way our dishwasher connects to the water supply. I’m sharing this story partly because the news headlines are often extremely alarming at the moment, and I thought my stupefyingly boring anecdote might numb you into a few moments of calm. (You’re welcome!) But it also demonstrates the wisdom of an insight I first learned from the psychiatrist M Scott Peck’s classic self-help book The Road Less Travelled: sometimes, all you need to do in order to fix things – in your kitchen, in your life – is to stop, and look, and wait.
Peck recalls chatting with a neighbour who was in the process of repairing his lawnmower, and mentioned his own ineptitude at such practical tasks. “That’s because you don’t take the time,” the neighbour shot back – a comment that gnawed at Peck and resurfaced a few weeks later when the parking brake on a patient’s car got stuck. Normally, he writes, “I would have awkwardly stuck my head under the dashboard; immediately yanked at a few wires without having the foggiest idea of what I was doing, and when nothing constructive resulted, would have thrown up my hands and proclaimed, ‘It’s beyond me!’” Instead, he lay down, got comfortable and looked for several minutes until he could trace the course of the brake apparatus. Finally he noticed a tiny latch that was jammed, and needed only a fingertip’s pressure to release it. Voilà! It wasn’t that the problem had been especially difficult; it was just that it couldn’t be rushed.
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