Every Problem Is Solvable

Society programs us to experience some kinds of problems as unsolvable or to be expected.

Don’t like your corporate job? Well, join the club – everybody hates their boss. Unhappy in your marriage? Well, that’s life – everybody’s got wife trouble. Blue screen of death plaguing your computer? Well, suck it up, buddy – that’s just Windows for you.

People choose to settle. They’re told to settle. They’re made to settle. And the sad part is, they really don’t have to.

An example

Yesterday I re-read Chris Guillebeau’s fantastic piece Why Not Try It All. Down in the comments section a woman – obviously a nice, intelligent woman – told Chris that while the advice might be nice for “other people,” she can’t leave her corporate job because she hasn’t got any money or resources with which to do so. A number of people (including myself) pointed out to her that there is no such thing as a “right” time or a “right” amount of money or a “right” anything to leave your job or go start your own business. She replied with:

You’re absolutely right that there won’t ever be a moment that the stars align and things become magically “right”—but there are practical considerations, such as not particularly wanting to live on the street. ;o)

I’ve also had the epiphany in the past that you can do pretty much anything you want to, but not everything. Time, alas, is so finite!

This good and honest woman is honestly missing the point.

The Point

Every problem is solvable. Maybe not by you, and maybe not right now – but it’s solvable.

An open secret

The most successful, happy, and fulfilled people I know are the people who do not settle for a world where some problems remain “unsolvable.” These are the people who don’t say “Well, suck it up!”

Instead, they see all problems as problems of resources. Maybe they don’t like their corporate job. Ok, what resources do they need to gather so that they can either begin to like it again, or get out of that job entirely? Some of the necessary actions or resources are probably out of their control or reach – but the successful will go out and tap the necessary people or collect the necessary resources to improve their lives. Successful people ask for help.

If you’re reading this blog, you have probably done that – or at least thought about it. You’ve probably done it in more than one area. But there are other problems that you’ve probably accepted as “unsolvable” without realizing it.

A question:

Why is it an acceptable or a “to-be-expected” thing to just live with painful problems?

We’re in a new era. People are leaving their corporate jobs, setting up their own businesses, going out to travel, and doing other life-expanding and world-expanding things at an unprecedented rate. But these same life-changers and world-changers – who feel empowered to go out and solve most every other problem in their lives – usually keep on being stuck in one particular area. Or sometimes, many.

Why?

The following two things are at the root of every painful but long-unsolved problem:

1. Pervasive myths
2. Not knowing who/where to ask for help

Let’s use technology as an example.

Technology is one of those huge areas in which people get stuck. Otherwise intelligent and knowledgeable people accept things – delays, crashes, workarounds, inconveniences – that they would never accept in any other area of their lives.

Why?

Pervasive myths – I hate to say it, but I think “IT Guys” have had a big hand in disseminating these myths and keeping them going. The myth for example that Windows is inherently unstable and crashy. The myth that all technology (never mind the fixes to technology problems!) have to be arcane and prohibitively expensive. The myth that technologists are like the gods of Olympus – and that we do things that you (mere mortal), are utterly incapable of.

All of that is crap. People accept it, though, because that’s what they’ve always been told. And then they expect Windows to crash – and don’t do anything about it because, well, isn’t it supposed to do that? They’re overawed by technology – and technologists – and won’t even ask for help because they don’t want to be condescended to or give up their firstborn in order to get a little help.

Not knowing who/where to ask for help – When you’re a non-technologist (maybe you’re savvy and can do some things on your own, but it’s definitely not your specialty), it’s hard to evaluate people who know more than you do about tech stuff. “IT Guys” tend to blind people with science, even when they’re not trying to. If you only speak English, and the “IT Guy” only speaks tech, nobody’s there to bridge the gap.

You don’t know who to ask. You don’t know where to ask. Maybe you don’t even know if what you want to do is possible. So you don’t ask for help, and you suffer in silence (or you suffer very vocally) and nobody comes to save you.

Let’s get personal again here.

This is something that I simply can’t stand. I can’t stand to see bad technology allowed to linger in the world. I can’t stand to see people being frustrated or held back by easily solvable problems.

I can’t stand to see these things in the way that you can’t stand to see people’s souls being crushed by their bosses, or rich white male politicians dictating what love should look like, or any other small group of bad people or beliefs holding sway over our daily lives.

Someone is perpetuating all this crap. For self-aggrandizement or power lust or even just through sheer stupidity. And each of us – we, the world-changers and revolutionaries – is combating one of these myths or the people who perpetuate them. We’re each doing it in our own way.

But to be effective in combating the one myth (or number of related myths) that we’ve set out to rid the world of, we can’t – whether by conscious choice or by default – accept the other myths.

A final word

The secret of success, I think, lies neither in trying to be Superman and powering through everything yourself nor in declaring problems unsolvable and giving up, but in the golden mean between those two.

Do what you can, get help with what you can’t. Every problem is solvable if we solve them together.