My thoughts while developing Solve Guide.
by Lewis
Every issue can be solved.
Every single issue, in the world, can be solved.
In fact, every issue is already solved.
There is not a single unsolved issue left in the world.
And there never were any issues in the first place.
Reality simply exists. It is our goals, desires, and discomforts that drive us to change reality. We interpret aspects of reality that that conflict with our desires as Issues. Issues are a product of perspective, not a part of reality. But, since we can’t do away with our perspective, we might as well accept that there are plenty of issues in the world (from a certain point of view). And boy do a lot of them seem to have no soluton.
It is easy to get swept up in the cacophony of the world’s issues. For me that looked like treating each issue that enters my awareness as the putative “Most Important Issue In The World” (MIIitW). Which means I have to learn about it, come up with firm (read: baseless) opinions on it, and start petitioning for change ASAP! The problem was that new MIIitWs would enter my awareness faster than I could learn anything about the last MIIitW. This would happen over and over, until the internet browser in my head had so many tabs open that I couldn’t even tie my shoes, let alone solve the MIIitW. This phenomenon had a side effect of treating the people in my life with less love and respect than they deserved.
Eventually I learned how to resist jumping into the MIIitW cycle and after time, found the edges between MIIitWs blur. The cacophony remained, but settled into white noise. There were no messages or pleas or testimony, just an endless constant drone. I would pick out a piece of the noise and hear that “something needed to be done about X in the next year or it’s the end of everything!”. But a year later the drone remained, and so did everything. Another piece of the noise would say, “we now know how to end scarcity and crime!” but the drone remained and so did crime. Then I discovered the only real issue I had was my desire for the droning cacophony to stop!
If I could, instead, accept the endless white noise by letting go of my desire, I wouldn’t have a single issue in the world. Didn’t that mean, that I had also solved every issue contained in the cacophony? At least from my perspective? Didn’t that also mean that everyone could solve every issue by through acceptance as well?
Acceptance was an instant solution to EVERY issue! I didn’t need to stop the cacophony. I only needed to stop my desire.
If:
Reality + Perspective = Issues
Nirvana = Reality - Issues
Then:
Nirvana = Reality - Reality + Perspective
Therefore:
Perspective = Nirvana
Assuming the total negation of reality, Buddhism can help you wipe a huge number of issues off the board! For everything else, there’s Solve Guide.
Should you choose to forgo the universal instant solution of Acceptance, Solve Guide will help you find the root causes, alternative solutions and optimal paths towards servicing the desires that you’ve decided to entertain at least a little longer.
Solve Guide will not work for you unless you have made the following two agreements with yourself:
Even if you decide to make these agreements, or have made them long ago, you will find yourself unconsciously abrogating them often. That is normal. Don’t Panic. When a particularly perceptive or persnickety aspect of reality brings this abrogation to you awareness, you will compelled to deny it! Or attack in response! Or reverse the the claim, pointing out that reality is actually the offender and you are the victim!
Remember in these moments to take a breath, be honest with yourself first, and remain open to temporarily changing the way you see yourself.
If you are not willing to make these agreements, you can still work with Solve Guide, but you’ll find that Solve Guide does not work for you. You may end up stalled on problems or choosing between equally bad options. You will feel like you are being taken further from where you want to go and that you are wasting your time entertaining ideas you already know don’t work. You may come to a solution or two, but in the long run you’ll find that “this app just isn’t very helpful!”. If that happens to you, know that I’m very sorry to have wasted your time!
If you are willing to make these two agreements, then get ready to be reminded of them often! Solve Guide will prompt you, in critical moments, to be honest with yourself about whether you REALLY believe a particular fact, or if a proposed solution is realistically achievable. Solve Guide will push you to keep coming up with alternatives when you are already pretty sure you know the best path forward. It will ask you to pause and entertain possibilities that you may have dismissed or were avoiding.
Know that the mark of a mature mind is the ability to entertain an idea without accepting it, and ONLY YOU can choose to accept a fact, issue or solution. When it’s too much to bear, the universal solution of Acceptance is always available should you decide an issue just isn’t worth exploring any further.
Being honest with yourself first does not mean that you must be honest to everyone all the time. Privacy is real. Tact is real. Self-interest is real. Surprise birthday parties are real. We get none of these when dealing in absolute honesty. However, in the safety of you mind, you must be honest with yourself to discover what you truly desire and what you are willing to give up to achieve it. After being honest with yourself first, you decide how much honesty to share with others (including Solve Guide!). You are not obliged to live in the Truman Show or play poker with your cards face up.
Being open to temporary change does not mean always saying yes or tolerating intolerance. While change itself is neither good or bad, your inoperable perspective is right to insist. . . not all change is good! And not all change is temporary. There are words you cannot take back, there are actions you cannot undo and there are wounds that do not heal. Change is safe when reversibility is certain. Being open to temporary change is about opening space between stimuli and reaction for a reasoned & reasonable response. Being open to temporary change means knowing the “yes” that makes you say “no”, and spares you from DARVO in yourself and others.
If you are normal then you have REAL issues in your life. In the course of trying to solve them, you may feel anxious, scared or unsafe. These feelings are also normal. Feeling are a part of reality but they are not reality. No one chooses their feelings and any feelings you have are valid. You will need to be honest with yourself first in deciding whether your feelings are leaving you with enough resources to continue solving issues. Acceptance is always available to you. When your desire to feel better grows more insistent than your desire to solve an issue, follow that urge and take care of yourself. As you take care of yourself, remain open to those feeling changing in the future. If you believe you can change, you might. If you believe you can’t, you’re right.
My unique gift I want to share with the world is that I am a reasonably structured thinker with knack for bringing clarity to others. This usually happens by asking a few questions that may seem odd and trying out metaphors until people laugh and exclaim “THAT’S Right!”. (credit to Chris Voss on “That’s Right vs. You’re Right”).
This gift has served me well in the professional world where I encountered the “IDS Issue Solving Process”, which is part of the Entrepreneurial Operating System originally published in the book Traction, by Gino Wickman. The IDS Process encourages teams to tackle issues in weekly meetings by:
I have set up many a Trello board to help teams manage this process, but there are nuances to actually communicating with humans that left me wanting.
In my personal life, family & friends have implied me to learn Non-Violent Communication, which encourages us to notices four specific kinds of communication:
An education in physics and other sundry sciences gave me a healthy respect for Observations and Interpretations. Working for and with startups on product market fit, user experience research, customer led growth and jobs to be done honed my ability to notice & validate the detailed & often secret Needs of others. And Feelings are a challenge I struggle with everyday.
I found that solving hard problems AND communicating ethically with humans was too hard to do by myself in real-time.
Solve Guide is my attempt to outsource some of the structure of solving issues to an artificially empathetic technology guide, so that I can focus on being honest with myself, and softening my beliefs, habits and character to change. Ultimately, I hope it helps me better communicate with kindness and patience to the people with whom I desire to spend my life, and solve my issues.
Solve Guide is a work in progress. I hope it works. But if it doesn’t I know I’ll have universal acceptance to fall back on.
Every issue can be solved.
tags: journal