That sounds like your answer is: "Yes, global variables".
That may be a perfectly good solution in many embedded environments, but in most other context's global variables are considered bad design or very limiting and impractical.
They're considered impractical mostly because language tooling doesn't support them appropriately.
> global variables are considered bad design
Global mutable variables, and they usually tend to be grouped into singletons (solving initialization issues, and fewer people bat an eye)