Showing posts with label problem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label problem. Show all posts

Saturday, 11 July 2015

Problems are not the problem

There are many events or situations around us that are not favourable to us. Only a few of them we tag as "problems". For example, my pick-up to airport, if late, is a problem. The latest space shuttle, launched a few minutes late, is not a troublesome problem although it probably involves rework or corrections worth a lot more money and effort.

What do we call a problem? Firstly, the event should affect my well-being. And secondly, it should be within my scope of correction. This second point is a very subtle one. If I am told I have incurable cancer with a month to live, after the anguish, it will not be a problem. Problem involves the invoking of a state of doership. I feel I can handle it, or I am expected to handle it, and I am tense about whether I will actually be able to handle it, and to me that issue is then a PROBLEM.

Problems do not come into our lives. Situations come, and a few of them, the handlable ones, we call Problems.

Therefore when we say that every problem has a solution, it is a tautology. Only because it is in our power to resolve, do we decide to call it a problem.