By Eve Bell

I went to the theatre on Friday night to see Maxine Peake, my favourite actress. She always leaves me with thoughts that either make me spin or make me ponder. This time it was the latter.

In the play called Doubt, her character said ‘Easy choices today mean consequences tomorrow.’

The line cut through me, like an unspoken truth.

It raced through my head about how much this applies in life.

In my life.

In this rush, we often choose what’s easy over what’s right.

What’s quick over what nourishes us.

We live in a world that fills every inch of our time, our homes and our minds.

We rush from task to task.

Conversation to conversation.

Never leaving room to reflect.

We pack our homes with things that make life more convenient.

But make it feel heavier.

We take the easy route.

Not because we’re lazy, but because we’re overloaded.

When there’s no space – physical, mental or emotional, our brains are always going to choose what takes the least effort.

We order the takeaway because we haven’t given ourselves time to plan a meal.

We scroll because our minds are too full to sit with our thoughts.

We buy more things to make life ‘easier’, only to find ourselves drowning in clutter.

We say yes instead of no because we don’t have the space to pause and check in with what we actually want.

A lack of space creates urgency.

And urgency leads to easy choices.

The ones that solve the problem in the moment but create bigger ones down the line.

We think the answer is willpower or better habits. But what if it’s something simpler than that.

But what if we flipped it.

What if creating space today meant freedom tomorrow?

Maybe the real answer isn’t in making better choices.

It’s in making room for them. Each empty space I create is a gift to my future self.