Many of the hard-to-replace things in life accumulate damage as time passes. It’s critical to learn to detect and improve damage before these things fall apart. This requires a combination of vigilance (noticing the damage before it is really bad or even irreversible) and continually using effective strategies to repair what’s broken. A car will accumulate damage over time, but even if you don’t take good care of it, you can get a new one eventually. Some things in life are not as replaceable as a car.

Here are some major life examples where irreversible damage often accumulates if left unchecked:

(1) Damage to the body
Don’t let injuries or imbalances become chronic pain. Yes, we will all age, but we have some control over how that process goes. If you have a minor injury, it’s very important not to let it snowball into a permanent (or long-lasting) one. That might mean stopping activities that cause the damage, learning to do daily stretches (if the injury is caused by tightness or poor mobility), strengthening that area, and/or getting appropriate medical treatment.

Imbalances, tightness, and issues of mobility often get worse over time unless you actively solve the issue. If your wrist hurts when you type, work on prevention before it becomes a repetitive strain injury (RSI). If your back often hurts when sitting for work, try changing your posture, chair, or using a standing desk if you can. Chronic pain can be an awfully unpleasant thing to live with. Don’t let it get to that point if you can stop it.

(2) Damage to relationships
Don’t let fights with a life partner, long-time friend, or close family member turn into resentment or contempt. At some point, when emotions toward another person become more negative than positive, it’s hard to turn back. For the people that really matter to you, make sure that anger gets resolved and doesn’t get left simmering for a long time.

Discuss problems and work together to solve them. Don’t just blame the other person, as that rarely helps. Especially when you’re going through a stressful, busy, or difficult time together, try to still build in enjoyable experiences together and quality time. It’s very important to keep your feelings about each other positive. Make sure that your interactions with the people you care about don’t feel punishing to them. For every punishing interaction, you may need 5 or 10 more positive ones to balance the feelings out.

If you say things in anger or are inconsiderate, apologize and make it up to the other person before they hold it against you. The couples whose long-term prospects I have the most confidence in are not merely the ones that seem happy; instead, it’s the couples that also seem like they are good at identifying problems in the relationship, communicating openly about them, and working together to solve them. Having some damage is inevitable, so it’s critical that you learn to repair it.

(3) Damage to attitude
Don’t let optimism turn to pessimism or cynicism. A series of life setbacks, or people being assholes, can leave us feeling negative about the future or toward people in general. It’s important to always have at least one thing you’re looking forward to in the future. If you don’t have something you’re looking forward to, try to create it.

It’s important to have good, trustworthy, kind people around you who restore your belief in humanity. If you don’t, it’s important to meet some. Don’t spend your time around bad people (you probably know who they are). They have a tendency to make people unhappy and cynical.

(4) Damage to mental health
Inevitably, difficult psychological events will happen to each of us, whether it’s the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, a major setback on a goal, or a global pandemic. Furthermore, psychological pressures can start to get to us over time, making us more and more unhappy. For instance, this can happen if we’re working too hard, don’t have enough free time, under too much stress, lacking critical resources, being treated unjustly, around too much conflict or danger, etc.

Highly traumatic experiences (like sudden abandonment, severe injury, sexual harassment, sexual assault, the loss of a child, etc.) can also create lasting difficulties for some people if these experiences are not addressed and processed.

Often we naturally bounce back from these situations (whether acutely traumatic or slow grinding pressures), but other times the psychological effect accumulates with time. It’s extremely important in these cases to find ways to get help. It’s ideal to get help before mild depression becomes major depression and before high stress turns into an anxiety disorder. There are a variety of options:
• You could see a therapist (e.g., try Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Behavioral Activation, Interpersonal Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy),
• You could see a psychiatrist (e.g., consider taking an antidepressant under their supervision – antidepressants are not for everyone, and they come with the risk of side effects, but they really help some people),
• You could try one of our apps (UpLift.app for depression, MindEase.io for anxiety). We help you apply a variety of evidence-based strategies, and
• You could find a well-reviewed book on the topic by an expert (e.g., Feeling Good or When Panic Attacks by David Burns).

If you’ve been unhappy for a while, NOW is the best time to do something to start to feel better.

Damage will accumulate in many areas of life. Whenever possible, it’s best to notice and reduce damage before it snowballs out of control. Problems are easier to solve when they are smaller.