Lesson Number “45”


 

Since I was a kid I thought that #growing up meant one day I would have an epiphany and know everything I needed to know. I would suddenly “get it”. I knew I wouldn’t know everything in the universe but I would know everything an adult needed to know. I mean all the adults around me acted like they knew everything. Eventually I learned that they were just acting. Because that #epiphany that I assumed was coming never came. I kept faking like I knew what was going on and sometimes the results came out in my favor and sometimes not. The good days are the ones when you can laugh regardless of the results.

But While I’ve never had the bolt of lighting sort of intuition that made all the secrets of adulthood clear I have learned 1 or two important lessons along the way.

The first big #lesson I remember was at age 36. That was the year I realized that the homeless man standing in the park arguing with the trees wasn’t talking to the trees. He was arguing with people from his past getting in those last words he never got in at the time. I figured this out because I started doing the same thing and realized the line between he and I is not so thick after all.

The most recent lesson has come in this my 45th year. It’s big and it’s simple. “Don’t solve the problem before you have it.” I finally understand that. It’s similar to the advice “don’t worry” but that has never worked for me. I’m something of a worrier. But one can worry and still accomplish goals. But the only way to solve problems that you don’t have is not to try anything, not to go anywhere, not to have any fun. I’ve talked myself out of a many experiences in life by brainstorming all the things that could go wrong until I ran out of solutions, and then never started.

So now I have a new mantra when I start talking myself out of a new experience or opportunity that feels like a “Hell Yes!” from the start. “Don’t solve problems you don’t have yet.”
Even when I worry that’s ok. I know I can get to the other side of fear and soak in the goodness.

Problems


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