There Are So Many Problems and Only One You, So Choose Wisely
A reminder that our priorities shape our lives.
If you’re a problem-solver like me you may find yourself expanding your definition of what you can entertain to solve. As a follower of history and current events, it’s easy to get lost in the woods. Each step is brought to you by a deep sense of curiosity. What’s next? How will this current event end? Will this problem get solved? What would I do to solve it if I were in a position of power? The older I get, the more it sounds like a siren song to pull you in and to trap you into a web of ego-driven importance. “I will convince everyone that my idea of how to fix x, y, and z is correct!” “If I were president of the world…” How often does that happen? How often does your input equate to changing hearts and minds, instead of just arguing into oblivion?
There are many problems in this world. Many have never been solved throughout human history. They may have changed shape over eons or have been softened by the technologies invented to remedy them. It’s as if being human leads to certain problems in the first place. We’re not perfect. A certain amount of chaos comes with the territory. A certain amount of bonus chaos comes with people attempting to fix things that aren’t even broken in the first place. This spirit, this attitude, this will to solve problems is a blessing and a curse. We can get caught up in fruitless, pointless exercises in frustration attempting to figure it all out. We often pay too much attention to macro-problems. Problems that have way too many variables, that cannot be contained by one person much less any supercomputer. These are the problems that have haunted mankind for centuries. We can waste hours doom-scrolling, thinking about our approaches to these issues, debating friends, family, strangers, getting sucked-in… or… we can point that energy towards issues on the micro-scale.
It's often easier said than done. Most issues on the micro-scale run the gamut of some character flaw that we’d much rather ignore, a lack in the skills department of something we need to improve, and issues like this stupid door won’t close properly. As someone with an Engineering background, I tend to tackle the door that won’t close properly issues first. It’s so much easier to dream than to do. When the problems in our own life start piling up, things aren’t usually addressed until they become an overwhelming pile of dread. Mirror-gazing is all fine and well when we’re liking what we see, but when we don’t like what we see, we tend to avoid the mirror altogether. “There, I will just not look into the mirror. Problem solved!” While, it is often difficult to face these micro-scale problems, the rewards for solving these problems are huge. It’s seldom discussed how much of a snowball effect tackling little problems has on your confidence levels! You start with the little ones. You start with the easy ones. The ones you can do in your sleep. You must keep up the momentum. The confidence boosts are fleeting so you need to keep at it. Then, as you increase tackling problems of higher and higher difficulty, everything becomes so much easier. Your life isn’t perfect then, but you have a much higher quality of life when you look back at your “done” pile of solved problems.
Back to the macro-scale. If you’ve decided to dwell here, well you’re solving zero problems. I know it’s a shocker. You’re more likely to live a happy, easier life if you focus on your own fixable issues on the micro-scale than you are to win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending all conflict throughout the world. There are infinite problems and only one of you. If you can’t change your friend’s mind about x, y, and z, what makes you think you’re going to go out there and change the world? “Well, my friend is just stupid,” could be one way to look at it, but you’d probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning, while winning the lottery, while scoring a hole-in-one in golf than becoming the savior of the world. Sure, some great inventors have changed the world in huge ways, but they’ve accomplished all of this on the micro-scale solving little problems one by one.
This isn’t a callous perspective. It’s not that we shouldn’t care. It’s that we’re not superhuman. We can’t give the world everything it needs, but we can give ourselves and our family everything that’s needed. This is our circle. This is our group. This is our little domain. This is our household and to some extent our communities. This is our little corner of the world that we’ve been allotted to take care of. If we worry about all gardens flourishing, no gardens will flourish. We’re too busy worrying about everything else that we haven’t focused on what’s here and now and what matters. As problem-solvers we have immense power, but it has a limited range. I write this now as a confessed doom-scroller and keyboard warrior. This page is dedicated to those like myself who struggle with where to place our energies. It’s okay. It happens to us all. It happens to the best of us, but the best of us at some point stop letting things happen to them. They start making things happen instead. We like to leave things better than how we found it. We like to fix things. Well, then let’s go out there and fix things in which we’d have the highest impact. It’s much better to be surrounded by all of those satisfied, smiling faces of those in your life in which you’ve made a great impression than to isolate your energies within these hypothetical thought-experiments. We’ll never not have problems, but our skills, our gifts, and our blessings are the counterbalance to that. We must build on them and employ them wisely.
Join me as I make my own journey solving problems, revisiting problems I’ve previously solved, and as I tackle the largest problem: becoming a successful entrepreneur. I’ve been in the mechanical engineering field for over 25 years, worked at many companies both large and small, worn many hats, designed machines, parts, invented new parts, and have solved many problems in manufacturing and in the field. My entire career has been based on solving problems. I will tell my stories and share my philosophy and experiences. I welcome you on this journey with me. I hope you can stick around.
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