Fixing things

Yesterday I visited the library and was struck the number of magazines that had in their titles something about "fixing". How do we fix the schools, the economy, the world were some of the topics covered?

To me "fix" means to set right with no or few problems. However, I would argue that many (most?) of the things that are wrong in the world are so complicated and/or so messed up that there is no way that we can "fix" them. Instead, I believe, we should set our eyes on how we can "improve" or "manage" these problems and learn to live with them. Perhaps we should be satisfied with improvement over fixing. The best is often the enemy of the good. We often don't know what the "fix" would be in any case, but we often have an idea about how to "improve" the situation.

So, perhaps we should set our eyes on improving what we can and managing what we can and not be deadlocked by aiming for what we may not be able to achieve - fixing the problems, whatever they are. For those of us who follow Jesus Christ there is no permanent "fix" this side of the Second Coming and the Resurrection. At best we can but "improve" and "manage" the problems and situations in life.