The nubbins of a eureka came to me the other day.  It was a friendly little nubbins – had a nice smile, an inviting smile but was as elusive as nubbins are want to be.  So here’s the gist of my moment.

The day had been totally convoluted.  Not a thing happened as I planned or anticipated.  Every moment was on the fly, and none of them were totally satisfying in the sense that I had reached any sort of equilibrium.

So out of this I heard myself cry, “I’m tired of trying to be Superman. I’m not Superman! I cannot solve the world’s problems.  I have enough trouble dealing with my own problems.”

It was then that the cute little nubbins made its appearance.  It smiled at my dilemma and held a mirror up so I could see what I was saying to myself.

The problem lies with the use of the word “problem.”  Too trequently we look at life as a series of problems needing solutions.  So we switch into a problem solving mode in which we try to find a way to fix some situation so it can disappear, and we can move on to the next item, the next problem on the “to be fixed” list.  God forbid that the solutions don’t come fast enough before the next situation comes to the front or that the fixes elude us altogether and another problem arises and another, and soon, very soon for some, we have complete meltdown.

At meltdown, we forget, we ignore, we deny the existence of “problems.”  By not focusing on situations as problems, the problems cease to exist.  That isn’t to say that the situation ceased to exist, but simply that our view of a situation as a problem ceased.  When we drop that label, it’s no longer a problem.

The word “problem” connotes a situation that causes dis-harmony in a person’s state of being.  As such, it is a negative and when encountered, we shift into Superman mode to right all wrongs, to fix the world.

If nothing is ever viewed as a problem, if it is simply a situation that exists and if we don’t claim ownership of the situation, but just deal with it with our given set of skills, then we can relieve the frustration we feel from the world being out of control, and we no longer have to be Superman to fix the world.