Solving Our Problems May Take a Long Time
Time goes so quickly. We want things right now, immediately. We don’t know how to wait. Waiting makes us nervous, it stresses us out. We’ve gotten used to satisfying our needs in practically no time. But what happens when it’s out of our control? What do we do when we can’t control how long solving our problems will take?
“The time it takes to rid your life of a problem is the same amount of time it takes for you to understand and appreciate that that problem had only come in order to make you a better person.”
-Luis Spinoza-
Beating our problems instead of solving our problems
When we talk about solving our problems, what we’re really talking about is beating them. How many times do we ignore the actual problem? And how many times do we hope that if we just keep ignoring it, it’ll disappear overnight? What we don’t realize is that troubles are opportunities to improve, learn, and break down the barriers we’ve created or that have been imposed upon us.
An example many of experience is the loss of a loved one. When we lose someone very dear to us, we find ourselves in an internal battle, fighting to accept that they’re gone from our lives. How long the battle lasts is completely dependent on the individual. Thus, it’s impossible to predict how much time it should or will take for us to overcome such a sad experience.
The example shows that solving our problems isn’t exactly the goal; we’re trying to beat them, to overcome the loss. Of course, it’s not going to be easy. You’ll be horribly sad, maybe even so deeply that it makes your bones ache… but, wishing that it would just be over could result in pretending — or even truly believing — that all is well when it really isn’t.
It’s easier to believe that you’re ok than to recognize that sorrow still pursues you. But this doesn’t solve anything.
No one can tell you how much time you’ll need. Maybe it’ll be weeks, a month, or even a year. But this is when it’s essential to accept what happened, analyze your emotions, and stop lying to yourself and saying, “everything’s alright”. There’s nothing wrong with not being alright. Not everything that happens is going to be positive, so it’s imperative that we learn to give ourselves the space we need to heal.
