One of the most crucial things that you can learn in the Art of Problem solving is learning to look at challenges as good things rather than things to be avoided. Part of our natural temperature in society today is that we have an innate desire to avoid the bad things in life. When fear rears its head, we like to retreat from the scary thing and hide somewhere safe. It’s just the way our culture has raised us. Confrontation and embrace of challenge is on the lower end of the social spectrum.
Passive aggressiveness and indirect confrontation, however, appear to be on the rise especially through means of communication such as email, texting and even social media.
The fact is, as a society we are starting to lose our ability to see challenge as a good and healthy thing. Why? Because challenges tend to be uncomfortable. When we experience discomfort, we immediately seek a way to escape from such feelings. This usually involves retreating from the problem at hand. Our current society is very interested in being as comfortable as possible. Convenience is usually one of the most prized possessions in the first world.
The things that once were considered luxuries, such as air conditioning and computers have now worked their way into being seen as necessities. Food is readily available at every corner and the idea of skipping a meal is quickly condemned as being extremely unhealthy. The challenges that our ancestors once faced, the hardship of hunting and gathering, living in a rough and dangerous world where shelter was something you had to work hard to build, are no longer around.
Since we as people are no longer forced to live in a constant war for survival, we aren’t exposed to the rigors of such challenges. When it came down to hunting, it didn’t matter for our ancestors if they were overwhelmed or not. They had to hunt or they would starve to death. The threat of a predator in their midst wasn’t something they could just ignore and hope it goes away. Rather they had to deal with the very real confrontation of dealing with a tribal enemy and fighting to survive. There are many benefits to modern society. We should be very thankful that modern industry and convenience allows for us to readily access food, clothing and other necessities without having to deal with the threat of death.
The problem is that there has been nothing to replace the challenges that we once faced back then. As society grows more complex, we are discovering that we have the luxury of avoiding most of our problems. Avoidance, of course, leads to disaster in the long run. Since we are able to feel good in the moment, we often choose to accept immediate gratification as opposed to feeling the discomfort of dealing with challenges.
The problem solver looks at challenges with a willingness to tackle them head on as opposed to trying to circumvent the problem. They don’t let their discomfort get the best of them and they don’t run away when they feel afraid or worried about a situation. They accept that they have discomfort within them but they don’t stop. They embrace the challenges ahead of them as opposed to thinking of the problem as something to avoid entirely.
Our culture puts us at a natural disadvantage when it comes to dealing with discomfort because we often equate discomfort with pain. When something feels bad, we assume that it is hurting us. The reality is that our discomfort is nothing more than a signal that what we are experiencing is unpleasant. Unpleasantness isn’t pain, but since we often live our lives in the search for ways to feel better, we often make the mistake of confusing the two.
