102: What are YOU going to do about it?

Subscribe: RSS

A Farmish Kind of Life is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. You can view our full affiliate disclosure here.

Ever been paralyzed with fear about a situation you’re facing? Ever been stuck in a loop of complaining about what’s happening in life? Let’s talk about an important question we can all ask ourselves that helps us live a solution based life.

Listen to the podcast by pressing the play button on the black bar above.

All episodes are linked under the podcast tab that you can find way at the top of this post in my menu bar.

You can also listen and subscribe to my Farmish Kind of Life podcast at

iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, PlayerFM, and other popular podcast players.

Solution-based life: Stop complaining.

There’s something that happens when enough people get together in conversation: they eventually find something they can agree to be angry about and then they complain.

I don’t have to give you examples of this because I guarantee you can see it going on around you, even if you’re not a part of it yourself. But you probably are a part of it—at least occasionally—because it’s so easy to get sucked in. Conversations focused on what’s wrong and what apocalypse is coming next get us all fired up. In a strange way, they even make us feel good—righteous and validated.

But they generally don’t do anything to change the situation.

Information overload

In today’s world, we have access to information 24-7, sometimes only seconds after something has happened. The problem with everyone having so much access to information is that people think if they know about it, they can do something about it. With our globally connected world, we have come to imagine we can do stuff about the problems happening everywhere.

Y’all, we can’t. There are issues in this world that are too big for you to take on.

Now, that’s not an excuse to throw up your hands and do nothing about everything, but it is a dose of reality to say this is something I have control over and this is something that’s way too big for me.

Believe me, the smaller things are where we need to start.

Start small. Look around. What can you do?

A lot of people have talked about what’s coming down the pipe. The phrase “coming economic depression” is even being thrown about.

Sometimes the problem can feel overwhelming, as in holy moly, I think there might be an economic depression coming and I don’t know how to deal with that.

You need to break it down.

What can I do right now?

What can I do right here?

If you are standing in your kitchen, your yard, your barn, garden, or shed, look around. What can you do right here to make life better today, tomorrow, or a year from now?

You have options. Be creative. Dig in.

If you are second guessing your financial stability, start small. Trying to attack your mortgage payment might be too overwhelming for your mind right now. Start small. For instance, go through all those extras that are coming out of your bank/PayPal every month—you might be surprised at what you find—and cancel them.

Yes, the box subscriptions, Amazon Unlimited, Audible are cool. But does the cost work for you right now? And do you actually even use them? (Ahem, speaking to myself—the gal who has every intention of reading all the books via Amazon Unlimited but never sits down to read. C-a-n-c-e-l.)

(Looking for a much deeper financial/frugal living conversation? Check out my book: It’s Not About Money…except when it is.)

I’ve heard people are worried about getting chicks next year. But hey, you’ve got chickens and an incubator! Hatch out some chicks and sell them to friends and family. Sure, they might be mixed breed. But if there is a chick shortage, a mixed breed that will lay I-don’t-know-what-color-eggs is gonna be better than not being able to get any chicks at all.

People are talking about seed shortages. Y’all, are you saving your seeds? If not, now is the time to explore this. Not only will it help you out, but it might help your friends. You can give them away, sell them, or use them to trade/barter.

Learn a skill. My youngest recently learned how to detail a car. I recently started a homeschool coaching business. Side hustles are worth brainstorming and pursuing. I think they have a lot of potential to be the way that a lot of people get by, and you have skills and knowledge that other people can benefit from.

Are you going to make a million dollars? Probably not. But the alternative is to do nothing which is guaranteed to make you nothing.

Maybe every night as a family, you commit to heading to YouTube and learning one new skill. It doesn’t have to be a two hour video, it can be something simple. Think of how much further ahead you will be tomorrow? Imagine how many more things you will know how to do by this time next year? And you can use those skills to benefit yourself and others. I can’t think of a single negative aspect of learning a new skill every single day.

It’s up to you.

The things that are up to you are up to you. There are some things you really can’t control, but sometimes we get so caught up in being angry about what we can’t control that we balloon that thought of “we can’t control this” into everything.

There are a lot of things we are still in control of, and we need to take charge of what we can. Start small scale. Take control of you and your home. Change where you take your dollars. Change where and how you spend your time. Be realistic about what is and isn’t working.

It’s up to you.

That applies to things you’re involved in, too.

How long have you continued on with something that you knew wasn’t working, but you continued on auto-pilot, complaining the whole time?

Come on, friends. What are you gonna do about it?

I recently talked with a friend about a group thing I’m involved in that just isn’t going well. She said to me, “have you ever considered that you just don’t function well in groups?”

I laughed and said,” yes, but I’ve also considered that sometimes the groups just don’t know how to function.”

True story.

If you are part of something, and you find that being part of that something has you constantly complaining, leave that something. Unless someone is pointing a gun to your head telling you that you can’t leave, you can leave. Take control of the things that you can control.

Yes, there will always be strife in groups of people—we’re not expecting daisy chains and rainbows here. But if every time you’re involved in this “something”, you’re angry about how it’s run or lack of follow through or questionable practices or changing rules (or whatever the thing is for you) you don’t need to stay.

What can you do about it? You can stop giving your time to something that isn’t helping. Take that time, attention, and care, and put it towards something else.

Self accountability is the key.

A friend once told me, “self accountability is gonna be key to security of all kinds.”

Think about that. This starts with you in your home.

You. In your home.

If everyone was accountable for themselves, can you imagine how that would change our world? And if everyone who can actually be accountable for themselves takes care of themselves, then we have the brain space and resources and ability to take care of the people who actually can’t care for themselves. (Notice I said can’t, not won’t.)

Encourage personal responsibility in others.

Asking “what can I do to solve the problem” is a great go-to because you can use it to shut down other people’s rants. Especially those people who are ranting about the same thing every single time they open their mouth.

You know the people. We all encounter them.

“That sounds rough, Bob. So…what are you going to do about it?”

See, people say they want control. People say they want responsibility. But the thing is, a lot of people actually don’t.

And if they don’t want to talk solutions, they don’t need to waste your time. Because you’re using your time now to think of solutions, right?