If you don’t take care of small problems, they turn into BIG PROBLEMS!

For all sorts of reasons, people put off taking care of problems: There’s no time to deal with the problem right away; it is not fun to take care of problems so we would rather ignore them (maybe if I ignore it, some miracle will happen and it will go away); I don’t have enough money to fix the problem right now… I could go on and on with more excuses.

Well, I want to let you know that if you do not take care of small problems while they are small (and it really doesn’t matter what exactly the problem is) IT WILL TURN INTO A BIG PROBLEM.

I want to share with you a small problem that I had, that for many reasons (some mentioned above) I didn’t take care of and it, and of course it turned into a BIG PROBLEM:

It started a couple of months ago (maybe even a year). I had a leak in my kitchen faucet. It was manageable. A little water here and there, but I could clean it up easily. Once a friend was over and even managed to tighten something which stopped the leak for some time, but as I should have expected, the leak returned after a while and I kept on looking for how to tighten it again, with no success. The leak made a bigger mess this time, but I was able to manage it by putting a small bucket under the sink - which I didn’t always remember to empty before it overflowed.

While all this was happening under the kitchen sink, the toilet in my master bedroom broke – the water continuously flowed into it. It didn’t really make a lot of noise and "I wasn’t really sure if there really was a problem", so I ignored it (and I am an avid conservationist). That is, I ignored it until the city sent me a letter saying that my water usage is unusually high.

Do you think that the universe was trying to tell me something?

For this I was also had a temporary solution - I turned off the faucet each time the toilet filled. This worked well until the faucet broke. The bathroom was out of order and we were reverted to the kids’ bathroom (much easier than calling a professional and dealing with the problem).

Now back to the kitchen sink.

Last week I saw water on the floor near the kitchen sink, thinking that I forgot to empty the bucket (which now I was emptying into the master bathroom toilet), I opened the cabinet door and saw that the bucket was relatively empty!!!!! I tested the flow of the water and found to my dismay that there was a leak in a different place.

THE UNIVERSE WAS SCREAMING and I was still looking for a Band-Aid. I tighten something and it stopped leaking.

Then, this past Friday, I was preparing Shabbat dinner and the kitchen sink started to leak in a place where no Band-Aid would work and I was forced to call my plumber (who I actually like and gives me great service).

After working for 3 hours on ALL the plumbing issues I had, Tzuriel explained what he did and how much it cost and also explained what he would have needed to do and how much it would have cost it I had taken care of the minor issues when they began – a savings of about 2 hours and 400 NIS! Not only did I lose time and energy (and piece of mind) taking care of all the leaks, I also lost money! (The shoe repairman goes barefoot).

 This story reminds me of how I used to take care of my overdraft and financial issues. Always cleaning up the mess and getting stressed out trying to find a Band-Aid that would last.

People! Fix any and all problems when they are small! Your plumbing problems, your marriage problems and your financial problems!!! Little problems generally have easy (and inexpensive) solutions. It is better to invest your time in finding the professional who will help you solve the problem is the best way possible instead of wasting your time grasping for Band-Aids.

What can you fix today?

Mindy