There is nothing wrong with asking for help, but we must remember that our purpose for being on earth is to learn how to arrive at the correct solution to our own problems. We have to write the script and—as well as we can—figure out how to untangle the plot.
Harold Klemp, ECK Wisdom on Solving Problems, p. 2.
Imagine yourself in a boat. You’re enjoying the breeze coming off of the water. You see the sun dance across the surface. Everything is sublime.
You look down and see water coming into the boat through a hole. “Oh, my.”, you say to yourself. Troubles come into our lives unexpectedly. We’re floating along without a care in the world, and then a hole appears, and the water comes flowing in.
Problems in our lives arise this way. Some we can see coming. Others are unexpected. They blindside us.
Sometimes when we solve a problem, we try to bail out the water coming into our boat, hoping we can get rid of the water more quickly than it comes in. This is an example of our “system” trying to rid itself of entropy by getting rid of the excess energy coming into a system. This will work for a while, but we soon conclude that we have put a bandaid on the problem, but not solved the underlying cause behind the problem–the hole in the boat is still there.
Another solution to our leaking boat is to block the hole. This is like blocking out the entropy coming into our system. Here, we pull off our shirt or grab some item we brought with us and block up the hole. Is the hole still there? Yep. This didn’t solve the problem either. The underlying cause is still plaguing us.
Then we finally arrive upon our answer. We let the boat sink and swim to shore. We transform the system by throwing out the faulty boat and learn to swim in the water without a boat.
In the abstract, a problem is entropy throwing our system into chaos. The boat is our system. The hole is the problem. The water is the entropy overloading the system because of the weakness (hole) in it. Subsequently, the chaos overcomes the current system, and it transforms the system to a new and stable one that can withstand the water.
This is how problems transform us. When our lives are calm, we are satisfied and ride the wave of life. When a problem arises, sometimes we can block the problem, run away from the problem, or transform. Blocking or running away are temporary solutions. Transformation is the key. We have to rewrite the code that caused the problem in the first place.
Many of our problems are a disconnect with what is and how we want things to be. It isn’t the situation that is problematic; it is the way we “see” the situation. The problem is internal. Change the way you view a problem, and the problem typically ceases to exist.
I hope each of you has a terrific Saturday!
Until next time…
Dave
