Workarounds Don’t Work
-An exclusive excerpt from Allen’s new book-
It’s not good to get used to our stuck places. But that can happen when we live with them for so long we no longer notice their effect or cost. It’s a bit like having to take an out-of-the-way detour home for months due to road construction. Soon, it starts to feel normal. But it isn’t. The goal is to get back to the original route as soon as possible, not permanently adapt to the cumbersome detour.
Just because something is frequent doesn’t make it normal.
Take my refrigerator as Exhibit A.
Do you know the first thing that tends to quit working on refrigerators? The automatic icemaker. I know this because it’s happened with almost every refrigerator I’ve owned. The one exception is my trusty garage fridge. It’s called the Gladiator and is still going strong at almost twenty years…because it doesn’t have an ice maker!
Our kitchen refrigerator is just a few years old and has two icemakers. When both went out last year, I didn’t call the repairman even though the fridge is still under warranty. Instead, I went for the quick fix. I drove to Sonic, got a bag of crushed ice, and dumped it into our ice tray. Problem solved. For a few days. Now buying ice is a normal part of my week. A year later, I no longer remember the ice maker was meant to make ice. I just keep making trips to Sonic because, well, isn’t that what everyone does if you want ice in the refrigerator?
While I’m confessing, I’ll share one more story.
I love my truck. It’s almost twenty years old. Which makes me love it even more. But gradually, the ride has gotten so rough that my coffee sloshes out of the cup all over me and the console during my morning drive to work. I just accepted it as what happens when you have an old truck in a city where they don’t keep up the roads. I got used to wiping up coffee spills while missing the real problem—my truck needed new shocks.
Over time, we get used to working around what’s not working–including our creativity. The problem is that workarounds become habit-forming. They keep us stuck doing the same thing, forgetting that different results are even possible.
(From The Creativity Glitch: How to Stop Being Stuck, Find Your Groove, & Create with God.Copyright © 2026 Allen Arnold.)
This reading was crafted to encourage your pursuit of story and creativity with God. Your donation makes this crowd-funded initiative possible. You can support it via PAYPAL (or by check to Allen Arnold at PO Box 62841, Colorado Springs, CO 80962).
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