Problem Solving Blog Tutorials
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 may very well be further from the truth.
To start with, how come we beset by problems of all types -- health, relationships, money, politics, and careers problems, among many others? It is because we are 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 very own choices and decisions; the very fact of the matter is the fact that our past memories control and direct, to a great extent, our conscious minds when we make our daily life choices and decisions.
The explanation is that memories, both good and bad 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 in the foreseeable future. That creates anticipation, and the necessity for more effort to guarantee the reality of that outcome later on. The process may generate stress, frustration, and also disappointment -- the sources of more relationship problems (via Revistas Uo Edu) 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 could be no expectation, and no extra effort required to sustain that ego created by your memories, and, accordingly, there could be no stress. As such, you or your ego is the cause of all your problems, and you are 100% answerable for them. Let go the ego.
Along the way of solving our problems, we often endeavor to solve others' problems also, believing that solving theirs can also be instrumental in solving ours also, because we erroneously believe that their problems may partly be accountable for ours too. Again, that won't work. Why not? It is since they, too, are 100% answerable for their own problems, just since we are responsible for ours. To illustrate, the Russians tried to solve the Ukrainians' problems through military intervention, while the Americans strove to solve the Russians' with sanctions; In the process, not only new troubles are created, but additionally 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 in turn become angry; your anger is your problem, not the stranger's. You're not able to "control" exactly what the stranger says; your reaction may not even "stop" the provocation. So don't attempt to solve somebody else's problems (the stranger might have mental issues); solve your own to start with, 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 basic problem is the fact that we "allow" the thoughts of a past memory from our subconscious minds to tell us what to say, how to proceed, and how to react. To put it differently, our past memories unconsciously control our conscious minds. and we do nothing to stop that. So, 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 have been 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 might think differently with different perspective. Problem-solving is approximately "awareness" -- what exactly is the problem? how serious is it? where does it come from? is there a solution (some problems have no solutions because they are beyond our control)? what will be the answer to it?
"Awareness" or "mindfulness" allows us understand better our very own problems and also those of others but without attempting to solve them ourselves. For the sake of illustration, the aggressive stranger above mentioned might have had a bad-hair day under extreme stress (although that might 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 own problems through our experiences, our mental interpretations of those experiences that have become our memories to continue to haunt us. Being in the present may go a very long way to helping us have clarity of mind towards our problems without striving to solve those of others. Problem-solving might not solve problems.
