This is from Mike Monteiro, a designer and writer and just all around smart guy. He’s been answering questions and this is in answer to, “How can we stay positive about the future these days?” His replies often have a lot of personal anecdote but they always work out as a metaphor–especially here.
… we couldn’t afford to heat the entire house. So during the winter, we heated what we could. And during those winter months, if you needed heat, you came to the living room …
Sometimes you cannot heat the whole house. The heat rises, it spirals. It escapes through every crack.
Sometimes you cannot be positive about the future.
But what if we redefined what we had to heat? What if we redefined the future to something we could actually manage. Because the future is too vague a term, and filled with too much uncertainty.
What if we could be positive about tomorrow?
[…] Spiraling into hopelessness helps no one. Giving an unhoused person $20 and a winter jacket that’s been sitting in the back of your closet might only help one person, but it also helps one person. When the systemic issues feel too big, we do what we can. When we cannot heat the whole house, we heat the core.