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SOVING PROBLEMS, THEN FINDING MORE

Solving problems is a process.
One of the first steps, if not ‘the’ first step, is identifying the problem.
The important part is not solving every problem at the same time.
Pick one.
(Not that one.)

Around here we face problems straight up, starting with the face part.
Take a short walk around your place and you’ll find problems to solve
Look hard and you’ll find enough to keep you busy all day, all week, the rest of your life.
If you let it.
So don’t let it.
Instead, set priorities and make a list of what you care about?
No, no, no.
And no.
I’m not trying to make you feel like a better person, someone who accomplishes things, someone who understands value and where to find it.
You’re fine the way you are. Say it with me, ‘I’m fine the way I am.’
I like to call that reality.
Yes, you are fine the way you are, but you still have a nagging sense of something undone that needs fixing.

 

Everything Is Fine

Let’s say you do what you need to do.
But there’s more. Someone asks help.
You’re not done after all.
Now you can choose: To do, or not to do? Help, or don’t help?
I knew a guy with a big overgrown hedge in his front yard.
He complained about it in a way that gave me an idea.
For a birthday present, I cut it down to about waist high.
After that he complained about the cars driving by and looking in his front room window, but I didn’t hear it.
You go someplace else after you step over the ‘friend line.’
I thought I was being a good friend solving problems, not a jackass with a chainsaw.
You could say we had differing opinions on the topic.

 

 

Another friend dropped a tree in their backyard and complained about what to do next?
As a good friend I went over to their house when they were gone and sawed the tree into rounds to split into firewood.
Turns out it was a special tree.
The guy had plans for creating wooden slabs for table tops.
They are who I think of when my wife asks why I don’t have more friends.
I might be annoyingly helpful?

 

Baby Boomers Solving Problems

 There is a group of millennials that like to blame baby boomers for all the problems, all of them.
After a few drinks there are more problems the Bad Boomers created than ever before.
I am what’s called a Middle Boomer based on my birth year.
So I’m a middle child in the middle of what was once the largest generation ever spawned.
At least we’ve shaken that tag.
And we did it the hard way, by dying off. 
And we’re still at it.
I’m one of those who have seen the generation of our parents move on.
I sat with my Dad lighting his cigarettes near the end.
I sang a song for my Mom.
I tucked my father in-law to bed the night he died.
I made my mother in-law her last cup of tea.
None of it was easy, but when you find yourself in a spot, stay calm and let it flow.
Did I have a smoke with the old man? Yes, I did.
Was Knocking On Heaven’s Door the song I sang for Ma?
Somehow I sensed my father in-law wouldn’t make it through the night and had everyone say their last words.
I had the last cup of tea with my mother in-law.

 

Things happen when you’re in a committed relationship, unexpected things.
I didn’t expect to see my step-dad through a window the day before his fatal stroke.
The end of life stuff is balanced for me after the home birth of my two kids where I had a more active role than expected.
No, I didn’t pass out or leave the scene.
Maybe that’s why I’m the dad I am? The Granddad I am?
I’m not haunted, just mindful of the bigger picture.

 

Walking Away From Solving Problems?

If that’s you, and you’re walking away, at least you’re walking.
I just got a treadmill and let me just say keeping a regular schedule with it has sunk in.
It’s not a clothes rack. Yet. It’s also not a Peloton Tread.
After four straight days of clocking half an hour on the treadmill I’ve got it down.
Five minutes of slow walk on 1.
Ten minutes on slightly faster with 2. (The speed buttons go to ten.)
Now I’m halfway done.
Finish on 3, with a kick at the end on 4.
After thirty minutes I’ve broken a little sweat and burned about eighty calories, which makes me look at the calories of what I snack on.
One Christmas cookie equals half an hour?
Beer and cookies? Which one goes?
Think of solving problems as getting out of your own way.
Someone recently pointed out that my gut seemed to be in the way while I was drinking a beer. (It wasn’t.)
I explained that my gut was a problem I was actively solving with the treadmill and it takes more than a week.
It takes more than a week to cut from shoveling food down your gullet to eating in a civilized manner.
More than a week to back off the gallons of beer.
It ended with an explanation of why not to shit-talk someone’s gut.
Why should one person not shit-talk someone’s gut?
Because, if that someone isn’t shit-talking the other person’s gut, it might change.
No one wants that, am I right?
Problem solved.
About David Gillaspie

I am a writer. This is my blog story day by day.