Problem Fixing Help
We have been all living in a world full of problems. So, we have developed a problem-solving mindset or mentality, naively believing that by solving others' problems, we could also solve our own. Nothing might be further from the truth.
To start with, how come we beset by fixing problems of all types -- health, relationships, money, politics, and careers problems, among many others? It's because we have been living in a complex world with complicated people and difficult circumstances. Where do these problems come from? They all come from our minds, which process our experiences, and they become our memories stored in our subconscious minds. These memories affect how we presently think, act, and react. We erroneously believe that we make our own choices and decisions; the very fact of the matter is that our past memories control and direct, to a great extent, our conscious minds once we make our daily life choices and decisions.
The explanation is the fact that memories, both bad and good ones, become our emotions, which ultimately create or become our problems -- even pleasant memories from the past. But how do pleasant memories cause us problems? To illustrate, if you have success in accomplishing something, the pleasant experience satisfies your ego, and that pleasant memory subconsciously makes you want to repeat your success down the road. That creates anticipation, as well as the necessity for more effort to guarantee the reality of that outcome in the future. The process may generate stress, frustration, and also disappointment -- the sources of more problems further down the road. If you look more deeply, the root cause of your problems is your ego, that you just want to satisfy and protect; Without the ego, there will be no expectation, and no extra effort necessary to sustain that ego created by your memories, and, accordingly, there could be no stress. Consequently, you or your ego is the cause of all of your problems, and you are 100 percent answerable for them. Let go the ego.
During the process of solving our problems, we often make an effort to solve others' problems also, thinking that solving theirs can also be instrumental in solving ours as well, because we erroneously believe that their problems may partly be accountable for ours too. Again, that doesn't work. Why not? It's given that they, too, are 100 percent accountable for their very own problems, just as we are responsible for ours. To illustrate, the Russians tried to solve the Ukrainians' problems through military intervention, as the Americans strove to solve the Russians' with sanctions; During the process, not just new issues tend to be created, but also the original ones remain unsolved. Solving others' problems is tantamount to "controlling" which never works in real life. To illustrate, if a stranger says something provocative to you, you then become angry; your anger is your problem, not the stranger's. You can't "control" exactly what the stranger says; your reaction may not even "stop" the provocation. So don't try to solve someone else's problems (the stranger might have mental issues); solve your own for starters, such as reacting negatively to the provocation or controlling your anger.
So, how do you solve your own problems without striving to solve others', or how do you stop believing that others' problems have become yours?
The answer is "awareness" or "mindfulness." The fundamental problem is that we "allow" the thoughts of a past memory from our subconscious minds to tell us what to say, what direction to go, as well as how to react. To put it differently, our past memories unconsciously control our conscious minds. and we do nothing to stop that. Consequently, when the stranger within the above illustration says something we "think" is provocative because we might have encountered similar experiences before, we act accordingly to what we did before or what our past memories tell us. If we had no past memories of similar incidents, we might have no anger. We are all judgmental; our minds remember what we did before and our action or reaction anticipates the expected outcome.
But once we become "aware" that it was no more than a memory, and not a reality, we may think differently with different perspective. Problem-solving is approximately "awareness" -- what exactly will be the problem? how serious is it? where does it come from? is there a solution (some problems have no solutions while they are beyond our control)? what will be the solution to it?
"Awareness" or "mindfulness" permits us understand better our very own problems and those of others but without attempting to solve them ourselves. For the sake of illustration, the aggressive stranger stated previously might have had a bad-hair day under extreme stress (although which may not be a valid excuse for the aggressive behavior towards you); your "awareness" of your lack of information might change your reaction.
The bottom line: very often we create our very own problems through our experiences, our mental interpretations of those experiences which have become our memories to continue to haunt us. Being in the present may go a ways to helping us have clarity of mind towards our problems without striving to solve those of others. Problem-solving may not solve problems.
