One of the benefits of having a drawerless desk like mine is that there’s no place to hide the mess.
If I let books and papers pile up on the desk, the clutter is obvious. It looks messy. It gets in my way all the time, so I have to deal with it.
That’s not to say I always succeed in keeping my workspace clear. But it does mean that, if I’m lazy and let my desk get messy, there’s no way for me to conveniently forget about it. Every time I sit down to work, I have to face the hassle of a cluttered desk. If I need space, I’m forced to push stuff into precariously balanced piles.
The mess is there, it’s in my face, it annoys me, and it’s real.
Sooner or later, I get fed up enough to sort through and clear out all the junk. And each time, I learn a little more about keeping clutter away in the first place.
When I had a desk with drawers, on the other hand, there was always somewhere to hide the mess. Stack of papers? Shove it in the drawer. Loose pens? Shove them in the drawer. Spare change, old toys, paper clips, half-opened mail? Into the drawer they went.
Once in a while, when I needed something, I’d dig through the drawers and feel slightly annoyed at the pile of junk inside – slightly more annoyed if I was unable to find the item I was looking for. But it was easier to just close the drawer and forget about it than to actually take the time to clean – so the pile would sit there for months.
Sometimes the first step towards clearing clutter is to bring it into the open, where it can’t be ignored. Better to have a mess and know it, than to sweep it into a drawer and pretend it isn’t there.
Where do you hide clutter? In a drawer? On your computer’s hard drive? What would happen if you put the clutter in plain sight? How would you do it? And how would that motivate you to find better ways to live and work?
***
But let’s step away from minimalism for a second, because the plain-sight principle applies on a larger scale.
Sometimes the first step towards solving a problem is to bring it into the open, where it can’t be skewed by the media or ignored by the community.
Here’s the challenge: people hide from problems. Or, if given the opportunity, they bundle these problems into a metaphorical drawer or a closet and pretend they don’t exist.
People talk around problems instead of addressing them, because seeing (clearly) what’s wrong makes them uncomfortable. Entire social conventions are built around keeping problems out of plain sight.
Managers discourage employees from voicing disagreements, because they’re uncomfortable with the weaknesses of their own policies.
In friendships, marriages, families, people argue about petty things because they aren’t sure how to address the root problems. It’s easier to shout about the TV or the laundry than to work out issues of jealousy or insecurity.
Citizens delegate the messy decision-making to politicians, who dance around the issues with rhetoric, because no one wants to find out who’s really right or wrong.
It’s easy to ignore the problems of people thousands of miles away, because they’re hidden, distant, nothing more than a set of statistics. They don’t feel real. But while there’s something to be said for sweeping in front of your own door first, when is it time to bring these larger issues into plain sight?
***
How do we un-sensationalize, untwist, and un-hide the problems of our communities, our nations, and our world?
How do we move beyond awareness campaigns that lack impact and are quickly forgotten? How do we create a drawerless environment where we are forced to deal with problems instead of shoving them aside?
Perhaps we travel to see things firsthand. Perhaps we release mosquitoes into an audience of the best and brightest to illustrate the threat of malaria.
Perhaps we fire every teacher in the district and get the community (and the country) talking about educational reform.
Perhaps we find a better, unconventional way to run a workplace or make a living, then get our friends and co-workers thinking seriously about such a “crazy” idea.
Be warned: people who call things as they see them (whether they’re right or wrong) are often marginalized. It’s rude to blast through social blindness, remove hiding places, and drag hidden issues out into the open. You’ll be called extremist, provocative, out-of-touch, naive, biased, closed-minded.
And you could very well be doing things wrong. That’s part of the risk.
But what if you’re right?
8 Comments on “In Plain Sight: How do We Solve Problems We Refuse to See?”
says:
I like this a lot, a lot, a lot.
Thank you for taking the principle beyond minimalism (where it is fairly obvious) and expanding it to more general problems. So many problems could be fixed if people would just vocalize them instead of having this unspoken agreement to let them lie. Addressing a problem when it is small, instead of shoving in a drawer, could remove these drastic “overhauls” of policy, relationships, etc.
says:
Love the ideas you’ve stirred here, Jeffrey. Keep up the amazing work. I’ll be reading!
says:
It’s the difference between merely existing and truly living!
says:
Jeffrey: This is a really good one. I enjoyed it. You are so right that people are often uncomfortable and would rather talk around things rather than take them head on. If you are a type of person that believes in addressing things and putting them on the table, you can really catch other people off guard and there are definitely risks with that approach. However, I think at some point if we are ever going to make any progress in anything, we have to be willing to call things out and solve them. We must expose those things that are not working and then really work at identifying a good solution.
says:
Jeffrey, You address something that is rarely addressed. Making mistakes is essential, however , for creating! This may be a clue about how to effectively solve problems of our communities , our country our world!
Creating is a process, as you know from experiencing the process of writing. It is very rare that you work from start to finish, without removing sections, adding new thoughts, correcting and maybe even putting aside and going off in an entirely new direction. Going into the unknown is part of what makes it an opportunity to create something better.
Looking at problems as opportunities is a good beginning to solving them. Thank you for a provocative post!
says:
You’ve opened the proverbial can o’ worms! I particularly liked this one and loved the title; it got my attention and kept me reading! (along with that picture) You’ve just shed the light on our ‘blind spots’. I keep a lovely house but NONE of my cupboards are functional. Such is the veneer I present. It’s not like I haven’t known this…but hey, I think I’ll start with one cupboard, one shelf at a time. Ya know, do something DIFFERENT! Thanks for the provocative article.
says:
Your last few sentences hit the mark, my friend. I call it “the emperor has no clothes” syndrome. And, yes, I am marginalized when I call a spade a spade. I don’t like to be PC, and I don’t have a lot of patience with malarkey.
I can get away with this sort of stuff at home because “they know me here”, but out in the world? Nope.
says:
So true. After all, we must first acknowledge what we want to heal or change.