What If A Problem Is Not A Thing?
What follows is inspired by a recent conversation with a client.
Outside of the thought that something is wrong, can you find a problem?
What if “problem” only exists as an idea, a concept, a label…not a thing.
Before the label appears, there is simply experience:
~ sensation
~ sound
~ movement
~ thought arising
Is any of this a problem on its own?
Or is it just what is happening?
When filter of problem lands, an entire story-line comes online:
~ This shouldn’t be happening.
~ Something has gone wrong.
~ I need to fix this.
~ What does this mean about me, my future, my safety?
Now we’re no longer with what is happening.
We’re with a story about what is happening.
Problem implies that reality made a mistake.
It implies that there was a moment when things were fine, and now they aren’t.
It implies a future where this must be different.
It implies a self whose job is to manage, correct, and control life.
But notice something simple:
Whatever is happening…is happening.
That may sound obvious, even silly.
But it quietly undermines the entire concept of a problem.
Because a “problem” implies that something should not be happening.
And yet, here it is.
This doesn’t mean we don’t respond.
It doesn’t mean we don’t adjust or take action.
It means the fight with reality is optional.
Look directly.
Right now, notice something mildly uncomfortable.
~ A tight jaw.
~ A nagging worry.
~ An unfinished task hovering in the background.
Before the label problem appears:
Is there anything actually wrong here?
Or is there sensation… and a thought commenting on sensation?
The moment we call it a problem, we leave direct experience and enter imagination:
~ a remembered past
~ a projected future
~ a story about who we are in relation to what’s happening
All of that is thought appearing now.
When the label drops, what remains is workable.
Often obvious.
Sometimes even funny.
Suffering doesn’t come from experience.
It comes from arguing with experience.
From insisting that what is should not be or what is not should be.
There is what is happening.
There are thoughts about what is happening.
Confusing the second for the first is where the trouble begins.
“Problem” is one of the stickiest thoughts we believe.
When it’s seen as a label, not a fact, something relaxes.
Not because the situation changed,
but because the war with it quietly ended.
And from there, response doesn’t need drama.
No problem-solving.
No fixing life.
Just meeting what is already here…the only place where anything ever is.