Unhelpful Assumptions (for Leading Through Uncertainty) #4 | “Something’s Wrong”

If a problem is not happening to you, then is it really a problem? We may not like the answer to this philosophical-sounding question, but it has very real and practical implications.

There is that philosophical question that if a tree falls down in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, did it make a sound? One answer is that it would have caused some vibrations through the air, but the perception of sound requires an ear to receive those vibrations, and nerves to convert them to electrical impulses and carry them to a brain where the perception occurs. So, no ear, no sound.

Now let’s ask a similar, but broader question. If a problem occurs, but it’s not happening to you, then is it really a problem? Imagine a highway full of traffic. One person stuck in that traffic is late for a meeting. Can you tell which one? Obviously not. So, where does the problem sit? Like the sound of that fallen tree, it sits in the mind of the person experiencing it.

Now, what if you move yourself to the edge of the solar system and look back at the planet? Objectively, where is that problem that you yourself are experiencing right now? Once again, it exists as a problem only in your mind, at the point of perception. So, we can say that a problem is only a problem to you, and only because you say so.

Now this is not meant to rationalise away our problems, or say they don’t matter. They do. But recognising where the problem sits puts us in a better position to deal with it—to deal with what’s real and what matters.

The first thing to see is that when we experience a problem, it’s not necessarily a problem in the objective sense, except that it’s happening to me. Except that it’s affecting me, my, or mine. Or us or ours. Except that we are declaring it so. Usually because it means things are not going according to our plan. Life, that random collection of events, is not conforming our agenda.

The deeper underlying assumption we make when things don’t go to plan is that, “Something’s wrong.” And, being wrong, it needs to be fixed. Yet, as we’ve seen from previous episodes, sometimes things don’t need to be fixed. Sometimes things work out, perhaps even for the better, in ways we could not have predicted. And if not, always there is learning.

So, what could be the alternative, more useful, assumption we could make? Dare I even say it? Try, “Nothing’s wrong.” As we’ve seen, the Western mind is very much about control and prediction, about fixing and putting things right. Therefore, we struggle to get our heads around the possibility that perhaps nothing’s wrong. However, next time something appears to be going wrong, stand back and ask, “What if nothing’s wrong?” Then step wholeheartedly into that mental framework and observe what happens.

The first thing that might happen is you start to look and listen more attentively. You start to consider other possible outcomes, ones that aren’t only negative. You start to see that there are many ways that this situation could play out, not all of them bad. You remember that if all else fails, there is learning. You might still act, but you will act more intelligently, with more relevance. You will respond, not react.

The truth is, we usually only reach this point in retrospect, long after the fact, when the dust has settled. Then we look back and say, oh, we could have relaxed, it was fine after all. Or we say, boy, that was tough, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, but we learned such valuable sessions. It takes a degree of awareness and self-mastery to notice our reaction while it’s happening, to not default to the negative, fearful reaction, to not try to control and direct things, but instead to switch consciously to a mindset of, “What if nothing’s wrong?”

Try it. You may be pleasantly surprised. At the very least, you’ll learn something.