The harder the problems you can solve, the easier and more interesting your life gets. And the reverse is just as true.
Our lives are full of difficulties and challenges. Partly that’s the stressful environment around us, and partly it’s that we as people keep making the same mistakes. We often don’t know how to solve problems, and we don’t try to learn.
The harder the problems you can solve, the easier and more interesting your life gets. And the reverse is just as true. The more actively you hide from even small problems, the harder your life becomes.
When you start dealing with any hard problem, you have to walk into a zone of not-knowing and humiliation. You ask dumb questions, you sheepishly double-check a hundred details.
If you have to deal with the state (outside of the Diia app), you go from one window to the next and feel like you’re being dragged face-first along the asphalt every single time, over the pettiest issue.
But even if your problem has nothing to do with bureaucracy, you still read piles of information online that you barely understand, make dozens of dead-end calls, hear “no” from people over and over, feel like an idiot, and wonder why there’s nobody who’ll just consult you properly (even for good money).
I realized about myself that for a very long time I deliberately avoided any contact with the problems and challenges that metaphorically drag me face-first along the asphalt and expose the areas where I’m incompetent and ignorant.
But I also realized that when you ignore something for long enough, a lot of stress starts piling up over you — and you end up having to step into that river anyway.
Lately I’ve been trying to act ahead of time instead of waiting until it’s on fire:
- I started dealing with my own and my father’s teeth while it was still possible to postpone it.
- I started electrifying the office, my apartment and my parents’ apartment before the winter blackouts.
- I started ordering the furniture and equipment that make daily life and work easier.
- I started looking for the specialists and doctors who help solve a lot of these questions.
I could keep the list going, but it feels like I’ve made a shift from a reactive life strategy to a proactive one. That’s when I don’t wait for a problem’s accumulated effect — I solve it early, or work to prevent it entirely.
It’s a great feeling to realize you’re preparing for the storm while the sun is still shining brightly.
And you can solve almost any problem by surrounding yourself with the right people and learning to build relationships with them. I used to drop a lot of contacts because something in a conversation rubbed me the wrong way. Now I calmly maintain communication even with people whose values I can’t stand. What matters is that we can be useful to each other. Becoming close friends with your entire professional circle isn’t required at all.
What about you? Do you prefer to work ahead of a problem, or to deal with the consequences later? Some people say problems should only be solved as they arrive.