Doom Piles

We’ve all got them.

Those piles of things that have no organizational home.

Or the bottle neck chore (laundry, dishes, etc etc) that causes a pile up again & again.

My friend Lakhpreet calls them Doom Piles & when she said it I knew exactly what she was talking about.

They’re seemingly never-ending.

Overwhelming.

And SO annoying.  

I walk by a Doom Pile & think: “I definitely don’t have the time / energy / emotional wherewithal to tackle that today” so I walk on by.

But I recently had a realization that I don’t have to do it all at once.

That just because the sink is full of dishes & the dishwasher has room for more dirty dishes doesn’t mean my only options are to either add my dirty dish to the sink OR do all of the dishes.

I can simply put my dirty dish in the dishwasher.

Not adding to the pile is still a win!

Or I can put a few dirty dishes away while I reheat my coffee (it’s actually quite amazing what you can do in 60 seconds!) and when my coffee’s ready, walk away.

Doing what I can with what I’ve got available to me.

So why am I talking about Doom Piles, lol?

Stick with me here!

I was listening to an episode of the podcast Search Engine called Can I microdose veganism? where he uses the term “Vegan-ish” and I found myself really relating.

Maybe I’m not in a place where I can be vegan, but I know enough about the meat industry to know that less consumption is better. So we do Meatless Mondays.

And by that I mean I buy a jar of premade pasta sauce & some noodles, sauté some mushrooms & throw together a salad from what we have in the fridge on Mondays because my daughters have gymnastics.

From something that really intimidates me (vegan / vegetarian) to a phoned in meal that works for my family that I don’t have to think about every week.

Then I started making the connection between this & ethical shopping.

Sometimes it feels like an overwhelmingly large Doom Pile of green washing, convenience, higher price tags, confusing terms, not feeling like anything makes a difference, etc.

But what if the place to start is just doing what we can?

One thoughtful purchase off your gift list.

Doing one shopping trip to a local small business or local artisan market this season.

Put one item on your own wish list that you know you’ll use again & again.

Finding one brand or boutique that you trust & supporting them whenever you can.

While the Doom Piles may not ever fully go away just like the problems of human trafficking may not ever fully go away, we can start doing one little thing now that in the end can get us going in the right direction & collectively can start to make a big impact.

What’s the one thing you’re going to do?

Tell a friend, or add it to the comments below.

There’s something powerful about saying what we’re going to do aloud!