2008-08-19

There are no problems

Sometimes I get told to be more positive. I do not want to be pessimistic but life often let me experience problems while trying to achieve something.

That does not mean that I do not continue working on a solution and often I am successful in finding a solution or at least a workaround. But when people ask me about a topic I mostly do point out possible pitfalls and obstacles that might come up while implementing a solution for the particular problem.

I do not really see this as being negative - I always find it realistic considering the most probable hurdles. And often a set of little issues can reduce general feeling of satisfaction. I just want to avoid such issues in the beginning by choosing the solution attempt where less issues are expected to come up (according to experience and feeling in the belly).

But however, most people do not want to hear about (possible) problems. They "simply" want to have everything working - no discussion - they don't accept problems.

Today I discovered that they are right:

There are no problems - just expectations might be too high!

And I am not responsible for other people's high expectations. That is something they have to live with.

Related posts: Expectation dropping, Success with optimism AND pessimism, Positivity barricades, Healthy motivation, When to criticize, Optimist meeting pessimist.

6 comments:

AvaniMehta said...

Sometimes people don't want your opinion, they just want you in agreement.

Sometimes, people can't take faults in their logic, you have to lead them to it, as if, they discovered fault themselves and not you.

Martin Wildam said...

If you have a how-to for that I would like to read it. :)

AvaniMehta said...

:) I don't have one right now. But wish to write about this one. Working with all kind of people is a big challenge. I usually am in awe of people who can do that.

Martin Wildam said...

Regarding the post title "There are no problems" I should also remind to "About this blog" - because this blog is about problems. ;-)

In this blog problems are seen as reasons of suffering. The particular post on the other hand is more about those people who don't accept problems. ;-)

Martin Wildam said...

Please see also follow-up "Healthy motivation"

Anonymous said...

Personally I don't think there are any problems in life.

People generally say there is a problem when the state of the world doesn't match how they think it should be or want it to be.

When this discrepancy exists people tend to suffer. If you like, problems are not the problems, expectations are :).