THE PROBLEM WITH PROBLEMS IS our use of the word. Because the word “problem” triggers such a negative shock to our system, the automatic response to it is: “I don’t want to think about it.” So we call in a consultant. We call in a counselor or a therapist.
The only reason consultants are so good is because they enjoy the fact that we have a problem. Because they enjoy it, they can bring enthusiasm and creative thinking to the problem.
I once had the pleasure of working with one of the top political consultants of all time, Joe Shumate. He was brilliant. The value he brought to every campaign he worked on was his love of creative thinking.
While his candidates would become emotionally involved in their campaign’s problems, Joe Shumate had no such entanglements. He was there to think. He was there to use his imagination and then to consult.
“The job of a consultant,” he once told me, “is to borrow his client’s watch to tell him what time it is.”
I found this little joke to be very profound. The reason the client can’t tell what time it is is because he’s not thinking, he’s feeling. He’s too emotional to read his own watch. He doesn’t have a thinking process going on in his head, he has problems.
One of the real problems in our society today is the word “problem.” We have invested so many decades of fear and loathing into that word that it has now become very hard to even think about our problems positively, proactively, creatively.
So much negative weight has been given to the word “problem” that we now use it as the ultimate word to describe people whose lives are really messed up.
“How’s John doing?” I might ask you.
“Not so well,” you say.
“Really?”
“Yeah, he’s got problems.”
“That’s too bad. He was a really nice guy.”
By demonizing the word “problem,” we have hindered our ability to grow and expand. We have robbed ourselves of one of life’s greatest joys: problem-solving.
In fact, problem-solving is such a joy that companies have to remove it from their office computers. Most companies have taken the computer games off the systems in the office because they are so addictive that employees do nothing but play them.
But these games are just problems in disguise!
We enjoy the problem of how to take the Mario Brothers to another level because we call it a game, not a problem. We enjoy solving the computer game Myst more than our own life’s identical journey because we think of Myst as a game.
When I had Tetris and Solitaire on my office computer many years ago, I became so hooked on the games that I had to purge them. Games are problems in disguise. They have simply been translated into a playful, positive language: playing games!
People buy books of crossword puzzles at the magazine stands. But what if instead the books were called “Crossword Problems”? No one would buy them.
In the mall, there is a video arcade with all kinds of electronic games to play. If the sign said “Video Problem Room,” no one would go in.
But the truth is, problems are always potentially fun. They are always an adventure in disguise. And they will be that way unless we add fear into the equation. Unless we take them down the ladder. Unless we personalize them.
For example, why is it that we love to hear about other people’s problems? Surely not because we like other people to be in distress. But rather, because we love solving problems, period. And when they are other people’s, we have no fear. Once we take away the fear, we can joyfully jump into problems. That’s why we like mysteries, gossip, computer games, and so on. If a friend comes over because he has a problem and he wants my advice, I might secretly enjoy the experience, although I will tell him I’m troubled and concerned for him.
Voltaire said that no problem could withstand the assault of sustained thinking. And he was right. No problem can.
In my workshops on problem-solving when I present Voltaire’s declaration that “no problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking,” I like to ask the participants if they disagree with the quotation. No one ever convincingly disagrees because no one has ever checked out the premise! They don’t know what it’s like to bring sustained thinking to their problems. Their typical response to a problem has always been, “I don’t want to think about it.”
If a problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking, then it’s probably not a problem.
Sometimes taking a break from sustained thinking and going for a walk will solve a problem even faster. When the mind settles down, intuition comes in and answers appear.
Remember, the ownership position is: If there’s no solution, there’s no problem. If there’s no solution, what we’re dealing with is a fact of life that we haven’t yet accepted. Every problem has a solution, whether we can see it yet or not. And every solution requires a problem. Solutions are fun, but to get one, you need a problem. So what’s wrong with problems?
When someone tells a victim he needs to talk because “it seems we’ve got a problem,” the victim immediately sinks down into the pit of his stomach. He feels the little butterflies. He’s no longer thinking; now he is worried.
Worry is not true thought. Worry is a misuse of the imagination. Worry mimics thinking, but it never accomplishes what thinking accomplishes. No one has ever “worried” a solution into existence. To find a solution, we have to get to a level higher than worry.
Albert Einstein saw this clearly when he said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
Reinventing yourself requires letting worry be a thing of the past. You can be concerned, but you can’t worry. When you’re concerned about something, you immediately look for the action you can take. You act on concern. Worry makes you passive. And neurotic.
Reinventing yourself requires problems. They are the games you play in this great tournament. The tournament is called the dance, the dance of life. Each game you win advances you in the tournament.