We get to choose some of the problems in our life

​Seth Godin says, "Problems are a feature. They're the opportunity to see how we can productively move forward. Not to a world with no problems at all, but to a situation with different problems, ones that are worth dancing with."

I have lived a lot of my like thinking the goal is to eradicate problems. Like, the better you're performing at life, the less you'll feel like there are problems in it.

When you think like that, and then wake up every day to the inevitable reality that the problems are still there, you start looking for ways to make you 'feel' like the problems are gone.

If you can't get good at making problems go away, you get good at finding ways to pretend that they have.

Something liberating happens when we realize life IS one long flow of problems. There is no rubik's cube solution that stops them from coming at you. No room to hide away in. No bottle to drink from. No hobby to take their place. The problems just keep coming...

The first thing you start to realize is I am not the problem behind every problem. Sometimes it's just life. We don't always deserve the beating we put on ourselves because life is beating us up. We are not always the problem behind the problem.

The other thing you start to realize is - no, I can't stop the problems from coming at me in life, but I do have some authority over which problems I choose to dance with.

There are some problems we choose to battle day after day and the end result is I don't much feel like dancing anymore. I'm tired and I don't want to hear one more note of that music or fake one more step in that dance.

So why do we choose to stay in that battle?

Because we're afraid there are going to be bigger problems on the other side of that problem.

Well that's the wrong way to look at it, I know now. The question isn't whether there are going to be more problems or bigger problems on the other side. The question is are those problems more worth dancing with than the one I'm battling with right now.

Will wrestling with those new problems make me feel more optimistic than pessimistic about my life? Will wrestling those new problems make me feel like getting out of bed in the morning and not perpetually hiding beneath the covers? Will wrestling those problems put me on a path in life that doesn't constantly appear to have a dead end sign at the end of it?

The problems are coming today. We are not stopping them. But we do have some say in which ones we choose to own.

The goal in life isn't battle-free. The goal is letting go of as many of the battles as we can that keep us feeling like we'll never be free.