Just, or How we Minimize Our Lives

Words matter. Small words matter. Especially the word just. We use it all the time, don’t we? But the word just is how we minimize our lives.

We Minimize Our Problems

It’s just one book. Just one drink. Just one Discover charge. It’s just this one time, we think. We say. We commit. And then it’s not.

That one book becomes a shelf-full. One drink becomes waking up in bed with someone we don’t know. That one charge becomes thousands of dollars in debt.

It’s just a little thing. Except it’s not. And we use the word just to gloss over the truly deep problems we don’t want to face. We minimize our lives until we’re convinced the problems aren’t a big deal. But they are.

We Minimize Others’ Problems

Sometimes we don’t just minimize our lives. We minimize others’ lives.

I once told the ladies at my mom’s group table about a problem I couldn’t seem to solve. It may have had to do with my kids missing the bus. I was frustrated, and I was venting.

“Well, you just start earlier,” said one mom. “I have started earlier,” I said.

“You can just drive them to school,” she said. “Well, I could but I have the other kids, and all that would do is push back this issue for 40 minutes.”

“Well, just…” she gave a third response that I no longer remember. And I probably answered her. But mostly, I was irritated, and it was some time later when I realized why.

It was the just.

Her responses were so casual. “Just do this,” she threw out. As if I hadn’t already tried that. As if I hadn’t even attempted a solution before asking. If it were just that easy to fix my problem, I would have already fixed it.

Of course, she was trying to help. And her solutions weren’t bad ones. But the just was more hurtful than helpful. It minimized my difficulty. Just do this. How obvious. How silly of you not to see how easy it would be for me to solve the same problem.

We cannot minimize other people’s lives. No more just.

We Minimize Our Wants

It’s just a dream, you know. That thing you want to do. Maybe that class you want to take. That financial goal you’ve got. We minimize our lives by reducing the bigness of what we want until it’s just a minor thing that won’t really hurt if we don’t get it.

But it will hurt. It’s not just anything. It’s real. And it’s big. And it’s important. Maybe it’s only real and big and important to you, but we have to let our wants be as big as they actually are. Because…

That dream will mean the world to you. So do it. No more just.
That goal will change your life when you reach it. Go for it. No more just.
That class may be the place you meet your new best friend. She’s waiting for you, too. No more just.

We Minimize Our Lives

But mostly, we use the word just to minimize the importance of our lives.

I’m just a stay-at-home mom. I am just a manager at Arby’s. I’m just going out with friends. I just have two kids.

We don’t just anything. Our lives are made of thousands of small moments, but they are big lives. They matter. Your life matters. Don’t minimize it anymore.

Today I was talking to a friend about our grandparents.

I told her about driving to Buffalo and back in one day to make it to the calling hours for my grandfather. Eric came with me. I needed to say goodbye. I needed to see my family. But mostly, I needed to speak to the wonderful lady who’d been his wife for the last 15 years.

I found her near the head of his casket, a widow for a second time. And I hugged her, and I thanked her.

“You gave us 15 more years with him,” I said.

“Oh, he gave me 15 more years,” she replied. And she ducked her head a little.

I knew what she meant. She wanted to say that she hadn’t done much. Just cooked his meals and washed his clothes and drove back and forth from Florida with him. She came to our family gatherings with him and made sure he knew his grandkids’ and great-grandkids’ names. With her around, he kept going when he might otherwise have sat around.

She didn’t just anything. She lived a small life, for sure. But it was a big small life with him. And it mattered.