The idealism trap

Maine’s lobster industry requires a lot of diesel fuel, along with government regulation to protect the international lobster population. And then, actually catching the lobsters and bringing them to market is very hard work. (Image by Delbert Millican)

A good friend of mine is trying to find her way out from under mountains of clutter.

“I just hate to put more things into a landfill,” she said. Meanwhile, she took issue with the practices of one of her local charitable organizations and the politics of another.

The result is that she isn’t able to find a suitable place to discard anything, and the piles remain in her home.

This is the idealism trap, and it creates problems for us when we (finally) try to take action. Instead of taking an easy and obvious next step, we complicate it by trying to find the perfect next step.

The likely result is that we’ll remain immobile, still searching for the solution that will satisfy all of our criteria.

Guess what: It isn’t out there. And the longer we’ve put off the problem we’re trying to solve, the more opportunity we’ve had to create obstacles to getting past it.

And then, it seems like such a big deal that changing our mind or relaxing our ideals feels risky or lacking in integrity.

If we wait long enough, we won’t have to act. Indecision takes care of itself all too often. By then, our only choice might be a really crappy one, and we won’t have to take responsibility for it.

I’ve gotten myself out of this cycle of misery by making strategic compromises. While I never want to have to do something that goes against my ideals, I might have to accept that my past choices have led me to a point where my best option is something less-than-ideal. However, in choosing this option and moving forward, I’m doing the thing that causes the least harm in the long term.

For example, my friend living in the cluttered space might be able to downsize her home once she gets rid of all the crap she’s hanging onto. Living in a smaller home will result in a smaller energy expenditure — something that is important to her — and lower monthly expenses. She will then have extra money to support charitable organizations that she believes in.

Plus, with less clutter, she’ll make smarter decisions about what to bring into her home. She’ll consume less because she’ll have a clear inventory of what she owns, decreasing the likelihood of duplicate purchases.

Offloading a bunch of stuff to landfills (both directly and indirectly) will hurt, but it will be a temporary pain that leads to the long-term benefits of peace of mind and a household that is more economically and environmentally sound.

Of course, decluttering is really hard. By making it even more complicated than it needs to be, my friend is preventing herself from having to do this hard work.

And that’s often the real bugaboo. We spend all that time strategizing and looking for a better way because it’s easier than actually doing the work.

I don’t think this tendency is something to be ashamed of — it’s too normal. Instead, we can recognize our hiding places for what they are and gently root ourselves out of them. With the right support and tools, we can declutter our homes, launch our businesses, make our art, or have the difficult conversations. We just might have to stop looking for the “right” way to do it and go with an inefficient, inelegant, imperfect, or downright ugly way.

I would love to be the kind of person who, for instance, starts saving up for a new car years before I’m going to need one. I’d love to be the kind of person who could stoically go without seeing family rather than release more carbon compounds into the air — or live close enough to family to not have to travel. But I am who am now, having made the choices I’ve made, and I’m going to do the best I can with what I’ve got. That means tamping down my idealism and buying the car I can afford that suits my current needs.

When we were young, we hadn’t had a chance to make any mistakes yet. We didn’t have to get rid of their old furniture because we hadn’t worn it out the furniture yet. We didn’t have to get rid of our old clothes because our first set of clothes still fit and was still in style. All of our wrong turns and dead-ends were yet to be traveled. It was easy to be idealistic and imagine that we wouldn’t mess anything up.

Once we accumulate physical and emotional baggage from our various journeys, it’s certainly understandable if we have a hard time getting out from under it. It’s reasonable if we struggle to reconcile who we thought we’d be with the person we’ve become. But we don’t have to stay stuck. And sometimes, the ugly, imperfect path, riddled though it may be with scorn or judgment from others, is the easiest way to get to where we want to go next and move forward with clarity and awareness.

Even if it requires a plane flight or the use of a gas-guzzling truck to get the job done.