Sweat the Small Stuff

(Source: Unsplash/JESHOOTS.COM.)

I’m three months married now and part of this new life chapter involved moving into my husband’s apartment. We live in a garage flat behind the home of a couple from church and I’ve had fun the past few months turning it from a bachelor pad to a cozy home for two, plus a foster cat. 

Becoming a wife has also meant becoming a homemaker, and I mean that quite literally. As the partner with the most flexible schedule, greater interest in housekeeping work, and generally better skills, it’s my job to transform this apartment into a home, which I don’t mind. I could easily spend hours (and dollars, if I’m not careful) at local thrift stores hunting for kitchen gadgets, dishes, and baskets. But that’s the fun stuff. There’s also the not-so-fun stuff: wiping up spilt milk, washing dishes by hand (we have no dishwasher), and scrubbing the toilet. Some chores are shared and I am a firm believer in the “honey-do” list, but for the most part, keeping the home cute, clean, and comfortable is my job. 

As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s been somewhat of an adjustment, going from having shared chores with roommates and only having to clean up behind myself to managing a full apartment. I’ll be honest that many mornings, my prayers revolve around asking for help to have a better attitude about my daily chores. There are times these tasks feel so mundane and I desperately would rather be doing something more important like, say, writing a Strong Towns article!

I haven’t had any grand epiphanies about the virtue of daily work (if you have, please share). But I do find meaning in the way that these little tasks make life easier for my husband, which he has expressed many times. I have no doubt that if our home fell into disarray—if the dishes went undone, if the litter box went unchanged, if the floor was never swept—we would feel these disruptions acutely. They would disturb our flow and quality of life. The apartment would feel less like home. 

It’s clear to me that all of these “little things” are absolutely critical to a peaceful home life. To be sure, we’ve had a good share of big projects, too: rearranging the couches, assembling furniture, moving unused items into storage. But for the most part, the apartment feeling like home relies less on these big projects and more on the little things getting done right consistently, every day. 

The same can be said of our cities: a thriving city is one where the little things are taken seriously. Where problems like faded pedestrian striping at intersections, broken street lights, and cracked sidewalks are at the top of the list, not buried on a staffer’s desk for when they have time. But these days, it seems that the projects and challenges securing political and financial attention in our cities are more likely to be the “big” things: building stadiums, attracting big investors, increasing tax revenue or maintaining administrative processes…you get the idea. 

These priorities aren’t necessarily bad, but so often, they receive a disproportionate amount of attention, revealing a limited understanding of how important the little things really are and a mindset about the city in which it is seen as a means to economic or political ends, rather than as a life-sustaining end in itself. 

The importance of little things truly cannot be understated. At our most primal level, our chief goal as humans is to survive, followed by the secondary goal of making that survival meaningful through spiritual, social, cultural and political participation. The built environment is the stage upon which we pursue these goals; it is our most immediate context and the one we must constantly examine for threats. Problems like bad street lighting, broken sidewalks, and unreliable public transit are directly related to our sense of safety and our ability to act in the world. We must be sensitive about these things; if they go wrong, it could be catastrophic not just to us but to entire communities. 

Here’s a case in point. Recently, I’ve been collaborating with some fellow Waco neighbors to brainstorm what it might look like to improve the walkability and bikeability of the city. Ambitious, I know! For now, we’re focusing on a small portion of one neighborhood and as part of our strategy, we decided to invest some time interviewing neighbors who are already interested in this topic to hear from their experiences and ideas. 

I emailed about a dozen folks and set up half-hour chats, taking notes as they answered a set of questions, among them the following: “What do you think is the biggest deterrent to riding your bike or walking around Waco?” Having a hunch of what common responses might be, I had set the question in my Google Form to be multiple choice, with boxes next to my most-anticipated answers: poor infrastructure, poor reliability (of buses), and speeding cars. Yet in interview after interview, another problem emerged that I hadn’t thought of: the likelihood of encountering a stray, unattended, and likely aggressive pit bull.  

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Waco’s neighborhoods, especially those closer to downtown, are populated with a shocking number of stray animals, including dozens of pit bulls, many of whom who have gone most of their life chained up, sometimes without proper food or shelter, and with hardly any proper socialization or training. 

When it comes to the private sphere, we’re responsible for dealing with any threats we might encounter; we must clean up our own spills, fix our own rickety stairs, chase away our own pests. Not so when it comes to the public sphere. Here, we’re dependent on other actors for our security; we must rely on public leaders whose job it is to secure the public realm. 

But often, public stewards are not always as responsive as we might like. This is because public officials aren’t sensitive to the same things. Caught up in the drama of political, economic, and administrative negotiation, the small things that shape our daily lives as residents are much less likely to shape their sensitivities and priorities. The projects that light up their radar are more likely those related to political and/or economic advancement…the types of things that secure nice photos in the paper, an award or reelection. I’ve never heard of a local politician running on a platform of fixed potholes, have you? 

In the long run, this mindset can cripple a city. Failing to consistently and effectively address issues like blight, overgrown grass, and broken windows can stifle a city’s ability to attract and retain invested citizens but also prevent citizens from leading safe and meaningful lives. 

And this is the kicker: Like a diligent homemaker, city leaders should see their towns as ecosystems containing life and ultimately be motivated by a desire to make life easier and more enjoyable for the people living there. But this is a major paradigm shift. It would mean resisting the spell of the “growth machine” and refusing to see cities as just means to political and economic ends, but rather, seeing them as human environments in need of stewarding. That is the only mindset that makes it worthwhile to sweat the little things. 

Let’s bring it home, literally: if I look at my daily chores as simple drudgery, as a burden, I’ll always struggle to be motivated. But if I look at the chores as the daily stewardship necessary to ensure that the people living in my home can sleep, work, dream, and play with ease, then these little things take on a radical new layer of importance. This is the work that creates the space for life to happen. City leaders should take on a similar attitude. Take seriously the cost that “little” problems can impose upon ordinary citizens. Focus on solving those problems and position your city to take on the big things from a position of flourishing, not desperation.

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