We all seem to have more problems than we need. We can resolve many of them without any trouble, but once in a while a really difficult situation comes along that just won’t yield to our best efforts to get rid of them.
Our initial reaction is to resist them, put up a protective wall and confront it is an enemy with which we feel we must do battle. Now the struggle begins. This confrontational approach to problem solving is negative and can produce only negative results; we find ourselves producing more frustration, anxiety, stress and fear than solutions.
Is there an alternative? Indeed there is. Let’s take a close analytical view of problem solving and see what’s really going on here. To be successful we must first accept the fact that the “old” ways are less than effective so any new approach must be a departure from accepted traditional methods.
Look at the world around you and recognize that we live in a world of opposites. We have up & down, short & tall, assets & liabilities, abundance & lack, profits & losses, positive & negative, freedom & bondage, etc., etc., etc. I don’t believe you can think of anything that does not have an implied opposite. Webster defines “opposites” as, “elements that are so far apart and diverse as to be totally irreconcilable one to the other”.
If, then, one of these elements is negative, defined by Webster as, “something that is the opposite or negation of something”, its opposite must be positive, which Webster defines as, “that which is real, not speculative, not fictitious and logically affirmative”.
As we think about it, we realize that what this is saying is that anything negative (the problem) cannot exist alone but requires a positive something to be negative about. That positive “something” is the solution to our problem. We cannot have a problem unless its solution is already available. All we need do is learn how to access it.
To solve any problem, then, we must discipline ourselves to see it only as a negation or unawareness of the answer we are seeking and which already exists. How do we access this? By calmly rejecting that which presents itself to us as a problem, (“an intricate, unsettled question without an answer” [Webster]) as not a “something” we give reality to and quietly search our mind with a “listening” positive expectancy and be responsive to the answer that will present itself to you in this positive mental environment.
Consider the procedure you use when confronted with 2 plus 2 = 8. To resolve this error, you do not focus your efforts on trying to understand the “8” but you reject it and draw on the truth that only a “4” belongs at the end of 2 plus 2. The problem is “solved”.
I know how abstract, unrealistic and impractical this approach sounds, but for many years I have proven its viability in my own personal and professional experiences and to the benefit of a widely diverse client base that has included many of the giants of American business. This revolutionary approach to problem solving is predicated on natural laws and principles which Webster defines as, “the creative and controlling forces of the universe”. Such a condition is absolute and irrevocable. It is the law.