What’s Bugging You? Small Improvements Can Help Daily Living

“The mere formulation of a problem is often far more essential than its solution.”—Albert Einstein

Einstein’s observation can be applied in a very practical way. To improve our lives, we can begin by identifying specific problems, ones that we might not even be aware of.

Think of the features of daily life that bother you, ones you would like to change. The general principle in decision-making applies here: Externalize your thoughts. Write a list of these bothersome aspects of your life. What exactly bugs you in your life?

This listing functions best when the bugs are specific and personal, and varied. General bugs don’t work as well. For many of us, this may be the most thorough and focused thinking we’ve ever done about annoyances in our lives.

The resulting list might seem irritable, but that’s not the case. It only seems that way because so many small bugs are collected in one place. Here is a partial bug list that I recently assembled.

Source: Yan Krukov / Pexels

1. Drivers at four-way stop signs who wave other people to go while not considering the line of people waiting behind them
2. When people say, “Do you know what I mean?” after a straightforward comment. “I don't like green olives. Do you know what I mean?”
3. People who are perpetually bored
4. Inadvertently making my cell phone do something really useful and then not being able to figure out how I did it
5. My Windows operating system telling me I’ve performed an illegal operation
6. Photocopying
7. The one pair of thick socks that doesn’t get dry with the rest of my clothes
8. Ironing
9. Overused clichés (People who instruct us to “think outside the box” are not thinking outside the box.)
10. Drivers who don’t use their turn signals – especially their left turn signals at four-way intersections
11. Owners of dogs who let their dogs bark outside at 4:00 am

I admit some of these items may sound profoundly superficial, but they’re meant to be at the surface of life.

Making a Bug List

Take five minutes. Write down all the things in your life that bug you. Make them specific, personal, and varied. If you run out of bugs in five minutes, you are either a truly contented human being or you are avoiding the bugginess in your daily life.

After making your bug list, read through it and enjoy what you’ve written. If you want, share the list with a friend. It offers commentary on contemporary life.

Using the Bug List

Choose one of the bugs and try to solve the problem. List several solutions, in as much detail as possible. If you have time, do this for several bugs. (With my list, I noticed a small pattern in my bugs about driving, revealing an attitude change I could make myself.)

In this way, distractions that intrude on the enjoyment of life will feel less insistent and may even disappear altogether. Daily life will become a little lighter and more open to delight.

Source: Yogendra Singh/Pexels