Do not wish for a life without problems!
Problem is something the majority of us thought we better live without, when we encounter them, our immediate and instinctive reaction is to run away as fast as humanly possible.
In a circumstance like that, the decision-maker — our brain, is designed for efficiency, not accuracy. Just because it was right to run away when you see a raging forest fire, it doesn’t mean it was wise to try to outrun a highly protective sow (mother bear). Even though your instinctive reaction is to run, the best way to avoid demise is to stand still, as running is considered an aggressive behaviour from the animal’s point of view.
The same principle applies to our reaction to problems too. Our most immediate and instinctive reactions betrayed us again. Instead of avoiding them, we should face them with all the ammunition we got.
“Happiness is not about the absence of the problems but the ability to deal with them”, said Steve Maraboil. We are afraid of problems because we think problems and happiness are mutually exclusive — you can’t be happy if you are dealing with your problems. By that logic, no one will ever feel happy ever again, as we are dealing with them in a non-stop fashion day in and day out one way or another.
In the 1999 sci-fi movie “The Matrix”, the made-to-believe virtual world was first designed to be completely problem-free, where everyone supposes to be happy; however, turned out it didn’t work at all, a large population of human started to die. It was a typical way of how machines think, wasn’t it? Humans hate problems, by eliminating them, everyone should be happy, which turns out to be a disastrous mistake.
It took me a while, here is what I realised. When there is no problem, there is no happiness. Happiness is the by-product of problem-solving. If there is no more problem in our lives requires our attention, we feel depressed and purposeless.
Most of the Lottery winners feel less happy after a year, one of the reasons is because of the sudden abundance of money and financial freedom. They have run out of problems to solve, and their inability to discover brand-new problems to solve really put them in an awkward position.
The problems are unavoidable; however, we can always find better problems to solve. Warren Buffet was the wealthiest person in the world. He probably has more problems than me and you combined; more importantly, he has better problems to solve than us. For example, saving children from deadly diseases and providing drinking water to these less fortunate in developing counties.
Don’t be afraid of problems, deal with them and then keep finding better problems to solve.
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