As a technical writer, I end up writing reports about some of the challenging, problem-solving efforts of companies. When I am writing about a civil engineering company’s work on a particular project, I might focus on how the soil of the site was extra rocky and how they had to figure out cost-efficient ways to utilize the rocks on the site so they didn’t have to pay someone to haul them away. Problems like these are called site constraints, and engineers and architects regularly have to solve problems and create designs that work within a site’s constraints as well as the project budget.

We also work within “site constraints” in our lives. We have limiting factors, like geography, resources, age, or health, that determine the range of responses we have to any situation. The point is that we always have choices to make. Sometimes the constraints we’re faced with make it seem like we don’t have a choice, but even then, we can always choose how to face what’s in front of us.

When it seems like we have no choice, that’s when our choices need to become more granular, choosing from moment to moment how we think, how we treat ourselves, our bodies, and others. Engineers and architects don’t throw up their hands when faced with site constraints, and neither should we. Instead, they focus on the choices they can make.

Photo courtesy of Kuhlens Photography