The morning starts. Coffee is on. The computer fires up.

Before I have taken my first sip, someone is already asking something of me. I feel irritated.

Why am I being bothered with this? Why does everything have to be so difficult?

Then I catch myself.

This is what I am paid to do. I have a good job. I have shelter. I have food. I have a dog who still wags his tail when he sees me.

In this particular moment, there is no real emergency.

Yet my mind needs to find one.

I have spent much of my life oriented toward problems. Give me something difficult to understand, repair, improve, or overcome, and I come alive. Problem-solving has helped me build a career and survive genuinely difficult periods.

But a strength can become a trap.

When we are constantly searching for problems, we will always find them: what we ate, how someone spoke to us, what we failed to accomplish, or what some politician said.

There will always be something “worth fixing.”

And while we are scanning for what is wrong, we miss what is here.

We miss the smile.

We miss the smell of coffee.

We miss the dog wagging his tail.

We may even get what we wanted, only to immediately turn it into the next thing that is not enough.

I am tired of finding something wrong being the primary orientation of my life.

So pause for a moment and look around.

Are you fed? Are you safe? Are you currently being pursued by a beast?

What if nothing needs to be fixed in this particular moment?

What if life, exactly as it is right now, is offering you an opportunity to stop searching—and stay long enough to experience it?

Problem-solving is a valuable skill.

It is just not a very good philosophy of life.

Drew

[Instagram] | [Youtube] [LinkedIn]

P.S. If you are enjoying these newsletters, it would mean a lot to me if you could share them