HOW TO SOLVE (ALMOST) ANY PROBLEM
My right shoulder had been hurting for weeks, and soon I could think of nothing else. Every time I moved, I imagined I could see the pain radiating through my whole body and I lived in terror of never being able to use it again, much less play pickleball. The horror.
I made an appointment with one of the best shoulder doctors in LA, and dragged myself there, gingerly holding my arm in an imaginary sling, afraid to jostle it.
At the end of the exam, he opened his mouth, and I braced myself for the inevitable bad news: a torn-to-shreds rotator cuff? Massive surgery? Amputation?
Instead, he casually told me, “It’s just a minor shoulder impingement - I see it all the time with athletes - you’re fine.”
I walked away with a list of exercises and almost instantly, didn’t give my bum shoulder a second thought.
It struck me a few days later, when I was functioning perfectly and painlessly, how stressed I had been about this problem, and how huge it grew in my imagination…until the doctor told me I was fine, and all was well.
Something similar happened with my computer. I spent three days panicking over what I was convinced was my imminently dying computer. It felt way too hot and then disaster struck: I was sitting working at a cafe, and the battery drained way too quickly for my liking.
My thoughts spiraled into me not being able to work, my abrupt descent into poverty and a life on the streets.
I sprinted to the Genius Bar in a panic, where the lovely man there ran some diagnostics and calmly informed me that nothing was wrong with my computer.
And from that moment on, there was nothing wrong with my computer.
These two incidents, and countless others like them in my life, have something important in common: the minute I believed everything was okay, everything was okay.
I’m not saying that ignoring major problems is the way to make them go away, but it is kind of miraculous how a simple redirection of focus goes a long way in at least mitigating them. While continuing to obsess over them seems to perpetuate them.
Making problems go away also harkens back to accepting, receiving, and asking for help - that’s the seed to becoming solution-oriented, rather than problem-oriented. Because, as my mom always told us, “There’s always a solution.”
And that help can come from two directions:
1 - External reassurance: The potency of something shitty diminishes exponentially when you share it, whether with a trusted friend, medical professional, or an Apple Genius. Plus, sharing it shines a light on the fact that more often than not, things aren’t as dire as they seem.
2 - Internal reassurance: I’ve recently experienced the benefits to stop trying so hard to solve the problem. Man do I love to control things, but I’ve also learned the power of “letting go and letting god,” as the saying goes. Here, too (and as always), even a little shift in perspective can be really helpful.
When in doubt, take a minute, and do nothing - it moves you away from the frequency of the problem, and more often than not, the solution finds you that way.