A Life of Solving Problems
An alien looking at our world might assume that we have been given instructions on how to live: “Get it all together (finances, love life, family, work, health, etc.), then keep it all together.” We get onto the mental treadmill that says this is possible, and it’s the carrot that keeps us moving forward. To accomplish less is a source of shame, a sign of our inadequacy. Anything that stands in the way of the ‘desired life’ is a problem that must be solved, before we can relax, or have peace.
We don’t even stop to ask – is that actually a realistic way of approaching life? When we look around us, at our friends, family and our own lives, we know it’s actually not how life unfolds: people die, health deteriorates, humans make mistakes, financial reversals occur, people lose their jobs, partners leave, wars break out, accidents happen. That is just the nature of how life is.
Still, though mentally we may acknowledge that truth, we may still hope and aim to ‘get it all together and keep it all together’. To have that possibility in front of us as a carrot keeps us from having to face the uncertainty of life as it actually is – and for the most part, our lack of control over it.
“The Buddhist masters believe that [if you see things from a conventional viewpoint] …ultimately it always leads to some form of anxiety. You spend all your time solving problems and trying to get rid of the anxiety. Your constant need to solve problems becomes like an addiction. How many problems have you solved only to watch others arise? If you are happy with this cycle, then you have no reason to complain. But when you see that you will never come to the end of problem-solving, that is the beginning of the search for inner truth.”
Dzongsar Jamyang Khentse
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