When I was little, I couldn’t wait to grow up and do something big and “real”. I was excited to move on from kid stuff like lessons, games and reading fantasy to going on massive epic quests in real life. That’s what adults did, right? The more challenging, global and impossible-sounding, the better.

I was also obsessed with wildlife. I spent hours every day watching nature documentaries. So the problem of global sustainability seemed like just the thing to make my business about when I grew up.

The Problems Multiply Faster Than The Solutions

I went to school for engineering and took an interest in sustainable technology. I now work in the aerospace field. My plan, growing up, was that I’d work on satellites that imaged the Earth, or measured carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, to contribute to climate modeling. So that is what I did, and I have been specializing in sensors and control systems.

I’ve been doing work related to satellites for a few years now. And I’m getting impatient. Yes, I’m working on something that might help. But my groceries still come in plastic packaging, and I feel a twinge of annoyance every…

Satellites take years to develop and launch. There’s so much more I want to be doing in the meanwhile. Sustainability is a project that’s global and multi-pronged. There’s always another angle to attack it from.

I still feel sometimes like the little kid who wanted to grow up so she could do something real, except now I’m waiting to get organized and productive enough to do something real.

You’re probably in the same boat.

Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash

There’s Always More to be Solved

If you care about sustainability, you probably have a lot of actions you take and many more you ‘should’ take and will get to, when you have a moment and your circumstances are less crazy. We recycle, reduce, reuse, etc., carry our own tote bags to the grocery store. Maybe sometimes we forget them at home, and that feels terrible.

Other times we remember, and that feels — okay.

We only make that much of a dent in the amount of trash being produced by humans as a species. There are still depressing news articles waiting in your inbox about floating islands of plastic trash, and wildlife suffering grisly ailments from being exposed to somebody’s soda straw. It wasn’t your straw, so what can you do?

It’s hard to stick to multiple tedious and complicated habits, and it’s especially hard when you can’t see if they are having an effect. You think you’re doing everything right, and then you read about one more hidden way that you were producing trash or waste or carbon dioxide that you didn’t know, and one more lifestyle change that you’d have to make to have a truly clear conscience. And best case, you decrease the scale of the waste/climate change problem by about 1/7billionth.

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

Maybe Bottlenecks are a Good Thing

Every time we run into an obstacle, we get closer to an answer to how things got to the way they are. And that’s a hint on how to change things.

It’s tempting to ask “Why don’t people just stop buying straws? Why don’t they just make less trash?” And throw up our hands in frustration about how uncaring and consumerist other people are.

Then, when you notice how many obstacles are in your way when you try to be waste-neutral and carbon-neutral, you see why other people are having a hard time. They’re not willfully uncooperative, they’re busy. Perhaps there are no package free stores where they live. Their tote bags are home when they stop at the grocery store at work. Their reusable mug needs washing.

Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash

Tinier Solutions

These problems are solvable. You can try out a workflow for cleaning your reusable dishes or packing your reusable bags. If it works for you, it might work for someone else in your situation.

There are a million specific contextual quirks and personality traits that make a solution the right one for you, and not someone else. The advice that newspapers and websites provide may not work for you, because you need to customize them to your needs. Try some ideas and iterate until you find a workflow that’s ideal.

Our situation and personality are not so unique that they can’t be useful for others. They might — for people who are like us. Who knows how many of the people out there would benefit from your experience!

We need not one standard solution to any given problem, but hundreds or thousands of customized ones.

This could have a much bigger impact than just not buying plastic bags. Your reliable method could be adopted by tens or hundreds of others (people who, like you, may be motivated, busy, forgetful) to buy fewer plastic bags. Share with them how to do it, and by identifying and handling a common bottleneck to sustainability, you’ve amplified your impact by a factor of 10 or more.

Amplify by Blogging

When I was younger, I figured that solving a problem like climate change would come down to making this one missing key, the MacGuffin that causes everything to slide into place and resolve itself. Now, I think it might be about: 1) finding and eliminating the bottlenecks — whether they’re silly things like not knowing where your reusable spoon is, or something big like needing a new satellite. And 2) most importantly, writing about it.

I’m writing down everything I know about this problem. I’m writing the ideas down before they’re formed.

I’m starting from the beginning because that’s where I am. I don’t have enough information, ideas or a strategy.

A lot of people are probably in that situation too.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Creating Motion

When you start from zero, before you can get anywhere, you need to start moving. To start moving you need to accelerate. And to accelerate you need to exert a force.

And before you can do that, you need to figure out how.

That’s where I am. Researching. And figuring out how to get moving.

Writing helps me figure out the steps ahead, and sharing my approach helps the others who are beginning from zero too.

How are we ever going to get moving? So many steps! It sounds daunting…

But then you remember: that’s how all the things that are moving ever get to move. Things move all the time (sorry Zeno).

That’s how you can have an impact. If you’re trying to do your part solving a big global problem (whether it’s plastic in the oceans or flattening the curve), and there’s one logistical bottleneck that’s driving you crazy — that’s good! Now you’ve identified a bottleneck that’s driving many people crazy.

Experiment. Iterate. Figure out how to solve that issue, and you have a solution many people can use. You’ve solved a bigger chunk of the global problem than you would have if you hadn’t hit the bottleneck.

And then share your experience, no matter how big or small. For someone out there, that is just the missing piece they need.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!