Racism, sexism, classism, political corruption, gun violence and so on, ready? Good, because we’re going to come back to all that, but first I want to talk about electric saws. Stay with me.

The other day, I had my first class in a course I’m taking this semester called stagecraft, which applies carpentry skills and general theatre knowledge to teaching construction of sets and scenery. During the opening speech on safety, the instructor mentioned that when cutting wood with a power saw, pushing harder to speed up the process is a very bad idea. Power tools generally work at their own pace, and while maintenance and repairs can maximize efficiency, trying to supersede a tool’s speed will only result in a bad cut, damage to the saw, or personal injury.

Now I want to talk about broken bones. Let’s say you break your foot. You’re in agonizing pain, so you go to the doctor. You get x-rays. You get it set and taken care of by professionals. You get one of those big awkward boots, and you walk around on crutches for a couple of weeks. None of this, mind you, is pleasant, as anyone who has broken their foot should know. It’s a painstaking, arduous process, but we go through it because we understand it’s necessary for healing.

Of course, it would be fantastic if someone said “Why don’t you just walk?” and then suddenly, miraculously, your foot was healed. It would also be ridiculous to hear someone say that, as it is generally understood by people with feet that they don’t work that way.

Here’s the problem. That logic that works so well on power tools and broken bones often vanishes when we start to talk about human issues. Gun violence, institutional racism and class division are all major problems in America right now, and people justifiably want to fix them. Immediately. If all that needs changing are people’s perspectives, it should be feasible to flip these issues around just by letting everyone know what the answers are: Stop gun violence. End racism. Just walk.

This leads to a phenomenon I’m going to call well-intentioned impatience, and it’s a tricky thing. Ending racism and gun violence are excellent goals that clearly require action. Saying things like “We’ll get there” or “Just give it time” are understandably unacceptable, because they sound defeatist. Activism is dependent on action, after all, and saying that some things can’t be force-sped up, like the power saw, is not an easy thing to do.

But I’m going to suggest, maybe controversially, that culture is more like a power saw, or a broken bone, than we’d like to accept. The word institutional gets thrown around a lot when talking about these kinds of issues, but I’m afraid sometimes we forget the weight of that word. Culture is not just a set of beliefs that can be persuaded, it is an institution. And we can x-ray it, or replace the machinery, as we absolutely should, but brute-forcing a solution might just cause long term damage. As tough as it is to accept, some things honestly do take time.

That doesn’t mean do nothing. Many people approach activism from a realistic angle of attainable goals and gradual progress. That may already sound like giving up to some of you, but when all we do is push and shove with good intentions, we harm ourselves and avoid the core issues.

Look no further than social media to see the ways unreasoned shouting and griping distract from actual progress. It may feel good to yell about Trump and Clinton both being bad choices, but it ignores the real problem that less than 30 percent of eligible Americans voted in this latest primary.

Getting to the root of problems like this and working up is hard. It’s frustrating. At times, it doesn’t seem fair. Because when we see injustice, we want to stop it, not negotiate. And that’s natural. But I think that maybe if we started looking at social change less like a dartboard, and more like a broken foot, understanding what we can practically do, we might foster a little more cooperation and a lot more progress.