Solving Problems. One Day at a Time.
This time’s post is a little different than the usual tech-related articles I write on this blog. That’s because this one is what I feel can help people more than anything else.
How often has it been that we have a problem at hand, or a seemingly unsolvable issue, a person we can’t get over or just something that doesn’t seem to go away? A question that always pops up in our mind in all the above scenarios is “Is it always going to be this way?” “Will it end?” “Will I be able to solve this problem?”
More often than not, these questions aren’t really relevant. Because how many of those problems that we had two years ago are with us today? Probably very few, and in most cases, zero. But why do we end up putting a great deal of mental effort into something that doesn’t really end up being a big deal in the long run? I am no psychologist, and I am not going to dig into research to find out why. I will take the easy route and say that’s how our minds tend to function.
I personally have the bad habit of looking at problems staying with me long term and happiness staying short term. As a teenager, when I used to realize the girl I was crushing on very hard was way out of my league, my first thought would be “How do I get over her?” followed by “Would I be able to get over her?” and then followed by “What if I can’t get over her?” The initial few days used of realization used to be the hardest.
Yet, here I am around five years later having gotten over not just one but numerous of those instances. In fact, I don’t even have a clear memory of what those initial days looked like when I look back at them, all I remember are the moments of joy I used to have doing other more important things that make people better versions of themselves.
In this article, I’m going to summarize an easy way of dealing with problems, not your normal problems, but the problems that you feel are bogging you down and are going to be there for a long time (Spoiler Alert: They aren’t!) For example, a common type of problem I usually face is the kind that makes me sit down and think “Oh no! I’ll have to live with this for some time now!”
Problems are a part of life, in fact, they are what make life what it is!
It doesn’t matter what approach towards life we have, it doesn’t matter how positively we live, there are bound to be problems. There will never be an end to them. Sorry for being so dramatic about it, but that’s the way it is.
The positive thing about that? They are what make you appreciate the times you don’t have problems around. The best times in life I remember are certainly not the times I was surrounded by problems, I don’t wish that for anyone, but undoubtedly the most insightful and most learning times have definitely been those times. They strengthen your brain to think constructively and analyze situations more critically.
I appreciate those times, and as I mentioned before, after I came out of certain situations, the trying times seem to be a blur looking back but the learnings out of them are undoubtedly crystal-clear.
Problems won’t stay with you for long!
Many of my friends, and me in all honesty, have had situations where we have felt miserable, and such times will repeat themselves. It is not uncommon and certainly not exclusive. Everyone has, and will, face trying times like them.
“What do I do to make myself feel better?”
“How do I get myself out of this?”
“Is it going to be like this from now on?”
All these questions are answerable, and the third question has no base. The answer to the first question is, quite simply, anything that can get your mood up or anything you like to do. You will have to discover what makes you feel good and then do more of it.
The second question’s answer is what I am writing this post for:
Just evaluate how you will deal with the problem tomorrow, that’s it! Don’t think how you’ll deal with it in the long term, or what impact it will have on your future. Just think about tomorrow!
The beauty of this approach is that tomorrow never comes and the effort you make today, is rolled over tomorrow, you decide what you will do to deal with the problem tomorrow, you do what you plan and at the end of tomorrow, you make a plan for the next day. Repeat the cycle multiple times and one of three things happen:
- You solve the problem in the meantime.
- You simply learn to live with it.
- You realize the problem wasn’t really a problem and that you have other more important things to focus on.
Feeling like making a phone call to your ex-girlfriend? Don’t do it! “I miss her! Maybe if I call her it can calm me down.” There are two outcomes if you call her up:
- The call goes well and it calms you down right now, but it restarts the vicious cycle of you associating being calmed down by a call you can make. Never a healthy association in the long run.
- The call doesn’t go well and it actually ruins your mood even further.
The best thing to do in this case is to put the phone down and make a plan as to how you will keep yourself from making a call right now as well as tomorrow. You stick to that plan and you repeat it day after day. The power of habit building kicks in and very soon, you don’t even think about it anymore! And in the meantime, the problem of associating talking to someone to calm you down can also be solved by taking time out to discover what else you like and what else can help you stay happy and motivated, and most importantly, busy and in the flow.
The process sounds simple. It is extremely difficult to get started and follow for the first few days, but it gets easier and easier every consecutive day you follow it.
It’s all about momentum!
A train at rest can’t do much, but the same train at going 150 kilometres an hour can tear through literally anything that comes in its way!
If you follow the above-mentioned tip, and start small, and build gradually every day, problems will not go away, but they will start meaning less and less. Coming back to the main picture of the article, the picture is of Virat Kohli, India’s premier batsman in Cricket. At the time of writing this article, he has been going through a rough patch lately and hasn’t been able to find the true form that he has played with in the past (Make no mistake, he has still been playing great, just not to the standard he has set for himself in the past.) This rough patch is no different than many of the rough patches that he has gone through in the past, in fact, he has a proven record of bouncing back stronger every time there is a patch like this. It’s just about one word: momentum.
Once Virat plays a good inning, then you can be sure he will keep playing that well or even better for quite some time. Why? Because he works hard for whatever he gets on the playing field and once he or anyone in the world gets going, they have momentum backing every move of theirs.
The same is true for real life as well, you solve one problem today, or do something good, then do something better than that the next day and so on, gradually this gives you the momentum to keep going and it starts feeling better and better! And once the momentum truly sets in, there’s no stopping! Read the quote at the beginning of this section again to get an idea of what I am talking about.
If you’re in a rut, just do one extra thing differently each day and in less than a week, voilà, you are out of it! Why? Momentum buddy!
Final Thoughts
Not having problems in life ruins the true nature of life. Life, to me, is supposed to be a series of re-writes of what you felt were correct previously that are no longer the case, after all, we are always wrong, we are just less wrong today than we were a few years ago.
For the above to happen, we just need two things:
- Problems to solve.
- Openness to acknowledge and accept that we are the ones responsible for getting ourselves into a problem, how we react to it and how we get out of it.
Be sure to get your start whenever you feel low, and build on it. Everything else simply falls into place eventually.