Solutions vs. Responses: Why Making Problems Work for You Is Better Than Making Them Go Away
Think about your typical response to the problems with which you’re usually faced — you come up with a solution, right? And typically, those solutions are designed to make your problem go away, right? Problem solved. It’s gone. Now we can move ahead, continuing along on the same, comfortable path we were traversing before that pesky problem popped up and demanded that we make it go away.
Maybe There’s a Better Way to Troubleshoot
Entirely too often, we think about our problems or challenges as obstacles that need to be conquered. Removed. Destroyed. We want to make them gone and we want to forget about them, as soon as possible. Rarely do we think about finding ways that we can actually make those challenges work for us, in our favor.
In a recent post, we talked about now Neil deGrasse Tyson brought up this exact concept in relation to the eternal struggle for a work-life balance. On a recent episode of FiveThirtyEight’s What’s the Point podcast, Tyson talked about how, as a young man, he learned to stop trying to eradicate the perceived imbalance between work and life, and instead use it as a springboard to push him into unexplored realms of creativity and innovation.
Have you ever busted out some genius moves when you were behind the eight-ball and rushing like nobody’s business to meet a deadline?
Then you’re at least a little familiar with the idea that stress and pressure have a tendency to beget creativity, innovation, and all kinds of next-level problem solving. The question is: how do we harness that pressure, and use it in a way that’s healthy (ie, let’s not all go around giving ourselves heart attacks in the name of creativity)?
Ride the Spiral
While their music might not quite be your thing, it’s tough to deny that Tool’s singer/songwriter Maynard James Keenan is a pretty keen lyricist. The song “Lateralus” has a line that offers a bit of value whenever this particular concept comes up:
I’m reaching up and reaching out / I’m reaching for the random or / whatever will bewilder me
and following our will and wind / we may just go where no one’s been
we’ll ride the spiral to the end / and may just go where no one’s been
When you can embrace the chaos — ride the spiral, if you will — you’re able to transcend what normally happens when you try to eradicate your problems. Embracing the issue at hand and learning to ride the spiral pushes you into new and uncharted territories, where invention, innovation, and growth reign supreme.
It’s the same idea that Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about in his podcast appearance. Rather than expend energy trying to thwart the chaos that shows up in your life from time to time, learn to ride the spiral and let it take you to places you’ve never been before. Embrace the chaos when it shows up.
Ever hear of Stoicism? (The actual philosophy, not the quality with which old-school cowboy types conducted themselves.) One of their major philosophical tenets is simply and effectively summarized by a dog, tied to a cart. You are the dog, and the cart is your life. That cart is going places, whether you like them or not. You can rail against the direction your particular cart is taking, or you can ride along and make the best of wherever it takes you, creating value as you go.
The key doesn’t always lie in control. Rather, it comes from “reaching out to embrace the random / reaching out to embrace whatever may come.”
