The Problem is There is No Problem

And when she asked me to clarify, I told her that I'd begun to realize that I have a brain that loves to solve problems.

Whether it's a puzzle or a knot to untangle or 12 unseemingly unrelated pieces of information that need to be connected all together, and you want those things solved, then I'm your person.

My brain loves that stuff.

But I've also started to suspect that when there isn't a problem to solve, my brain doesn't always know what to do with itself.

So sometimes it simply goes out and manufactures a problem so it has something to do.

And that made me wonder how many of us actually do this? How many of us look for problems where they don't actually exist? And maybe even more importantly, why do we do that? Well, obviously, problem solving gives our brains something to do.

And when we solve the problem, we get to feel capable, useful, competent.

And for those of us who have spent a lot of our lives being the person who figures things out, it's familiar territory.

If we perceive a problem, we spring into action, we develop a plan, and then we get that feeling of momentum.

We know who we are in that space.

We are the women who handle all the things.

But what if problem solving doesn't just feel satisfying? What if for some of us, it actually feels safer than ease? Because ease can feel uncomfortable when you're used to managing all the things.

I mean, without a problem or a puzzle, there's nothing to fix, nothing to anticipate, nothing to optimize.

Everything is just fine.

And apparently my nervous system's response to that is, wait a minute, this feels suspicious.

What are we missing? What haven't we thought of? Surely there is something around here that requires our immediate attention.

And I think that suspicion arises because solving and striving gives me something to do.

And enjoying our lives asks us to simply be.

I know, deep breaths, everyone.

Because if you're anything like me, simply being sounds lovely in theory.

But actually doing it, that can be surprisingly difficult.

I have spent a lot of my life thinking about what comes next, what needs to happen, what needs fixing.

And I wonder, can you relate to that too? I'm starting to suspect that there is a point at which all of that management keeps us slightly outside our own lives.