Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

by Jessica Bruder

Linda rededicated herself to quitting with a new vigor. This time it stuck. When she worried about slipping between AA meetings, she called her sponsor. Oddly, that’s how she learned some of the same techniques that helped her keep going through long shifts at Amazon. She became an expert at focusing on whatever challenge lay immediately ahead, parsing large problems into bite-sized chunks until she felt she could manage anything. “Are your dishes done? Okay. Go do your dishes then and call me back,” her sponsor used to tell her. Linda would scrub the plates and glasses until they gleamed, then call again. “Did you make your bed?” was the next question. Linda went and did that, too. And so on, and so on, until she had muddled through.