How Fixing Machines Taught Me to Fix Myself

I never intended to become a mechanic for my soul. I just wanted to learn how to fix washing machines. For years, I approached personal struggles with the same fear I had of a stripped bolt — avoidance. Then during Covid I bought a laundromat in Washington DC and became the proud owner of 25 washing machines and 30 dryers. When I was forced to take a wrench to a broken motor, I accidentally picked up the blueprint for my own emotional repair. The laundromat became my most unexpected school of life.

The first and most crucial lesson was diagnosis. When a machine breaks, the symptom— a noise, a trail of water, or a complete halt—is never the actual problem. It can take hours of patient testing, consulting the manual, and tracing wires to realize an intermittent stall isn't a motor problem but rather a frayed connection hidden under the computer board. In life, I'd been treating symptoms: distracting myself from anxiety with busywork, rather than finding the source. Mechanics taught me to isolate the issue, to follow the wire to the break, no matter how uncomfortable the light it shed. It forced me to ask the painful question: What is actually failing here?

Once diagnosed, repair demands meticulous, unhurried labor. You can’t rush the tightening sequence of a water valve or substitute a tool just because you’re impatient. Every component, however small, matters to the integrity of the whole. This was the antithesis of my normal approach to self-improvement, which was to ignore the problem and hope it goes away. Learning to accept that real, lasting change—like repairing a washing machine —requires breaking the problem down into manageable, precise steps and respecting the process, no matter how slow, was revolutionary.

The true reward, however, wasn't just the successful repair, but the profound confidence that followed. There is a deep, primal satisfaction in fixing a broken machine and hearing it roar back to life entirely because of your own hands and mind. If I could take a baffling, 500 pound machine apart and put it back together in better working order, what was stopping me from doing the same with my mental health and personal relationships?

Now, the metaphor is ingrained. I know that the “self,” like any well-loved machine, isn't meant to run forever without attention. It needs clear diagnosis, the patience for the hard, hands-on labor of fixing, and the acknowledgment that every minor adjustment contributes to a more reliable, stronger future. I still keep my toolbox handy, because in life, just as in the laundromat, the greatest breakdowns often precede the greatest breakthroughs.