One step to improve your ability to solve problems

First off, I have a problem with the modern usage of the word “problem” and all the freight, meaning, baggage, and connotations that come with it.

The dictionary (Merriam Webster) says this:

Problem –

• A question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution
• An intricate unsettled question
• A source of perplexity, distress, or vexation
• Difficulty in understanding or accepting (“I have a problem with that.”)

Today, we often speak of problems in a negative sense. There it is: that’s my problem with “problem.”

Side note: Sometimes when you say a word over and over again, it begins to look weird and you feel like you don’t know the word anymore! This is happening to me right now with “problem.” I searched the internet and found out this is called “semantic satiation.”

Back to the problem at hand: my problem with “problem.”

It’s just that we see problems as negative. As if a good life is a problem-free life, some smooth road with no curves or pot-holes, where we arrive at the other end with our clothes unwrinkled and our minds untroubled.

What if a good life means a life where we grow? Become better humans? What if now, problems have a purpose?

If we already knew how to solve them, problems wouldn’t be problems. “Problem” just means, I don’t know how to do this – yet. Problems bring growth right along with them as part of the package. 

What if we make a decision, in our heads, right now, to see problems not as something that happens to us, but rather something that happens for us?

Is this just wordplay? I don’t think so. 

By shifting our perspective on problems, we remove some of the baggage that can come with them … like, why did this happen? What is wrong with me? I’m angry this happened! How dare so-and-so cause this problem for me! I don’t need another problem! I’m too busy with these other problems to take on this problem!

I’m not saying we can avoid these feelings sometimes. And here is the point and the promise of this short article:

I am saying that the energy we give to these feelings is energy we don’t have available for growth, and that if we can shift our perspective quickly, we can get on with forward motion. Why not see problems differently and embrace them as a necessary part of growth? 

I don’t know, maybe we need to find another word for “problem.”

What do you think of this?

There’s an old saying that if something is going to funny someday, then it’s funny today. Maybe the same is true for problems: if someday this problem is going to be looked back on as a growth opportunity, then it’s a growth opportunity now.