Problems Multiply

Problems multiply like rabbits if left. When other people ask for help with a problem, they often work it out themselves if left alone. But many things don’t do that, instead they grow like weeds.

When we are young, our parents clean up after us, so this fact is invisible to us but when we leave home, it is not. My first experience of living independently was to join four “adults” fresh from home, who all left the cleaning to others. I saw every dirty dish and cup piled up on the sink, and to have a cup of coffee they cleaned one cup and then put it back on the pile! One day, I did all the dishes to find a teapot at the bottom with tea bags covered in mold! Fungi are nature’s garbage disposal. I learned that if you have to do something, better to do it sooner rather than later, lest it grow. A little acorn root that can be pulled out with one hand becomes a tree that needs a chainsaw.

Unless you’re a child with a kind mother, don’t ignore problems you see. Ignoring a problem often doesn’t make it go away because nothing in nature stays still. Many problems are like rabbits that multiply if left alone. They breed, just as misery breeds misery. So if you see something that you have to do at some point, do it directly lest its progeny overwhelm you.