Freedom from Problems
Q. But why would I actually want certain problems?
A. This is hard to see. Hard to accept. Because it’s illogical. And we love things that make sense.
To the “you” you normally identify with, the one who’s supposedly in charge, a personal problem you’re stuck with may look like a genuine problem: something annoying, unwanted, even painful.
But to your inner machine, that automatic, background operator that runs you outside your awareness, it’s not a problem at all. It’s the ideal setup.
In fact, it may have engineered the problem or at least acted to perpetuate it.
The machine wants to keep you parked in a familiar emotional temperature, a kind of homeostasis.
The “problem” delivers a perfect alibi to indulge the pettier, more selfish sides of you that you’d never admit to: feeling needed, validated, superior, righteous, martyred, in control, morally superior, etc.
… without you ever having to own that’s what’s really going on.
The insidious part is that you don’t even know the machine is driving. It has its own agenda, and the “problem” is how it gets what it wants every single time.
That’s the whole game. What looks like an obstacle to you is just a process for the machine’s delivery system for the low-grade payoff you’re actually unwilling to give up
Example
Jake constantly gripes that “no one ever follows through around here.”
The complaint feels righteous. It lets him indulge the smug, slightly contemptuous inner voice he’d deny having. It also lets him stay comfortably in control. He never has to risk delegating real authority or looking vulnerable if things go sideways. The chaos is annoying, sure, but it’s his chaos. Familiar. And it keeps delivering that quiet hit of “I’m the only one who really gets it.”
He’ll swear he hates the problem.
He does.
He also needs it more than he needs results.
That’s the mechanism in plain sight.
Evaluation
Dirty pool. Because the machine steals possibility, joy and satisfaction for its own lesser aims.
Often these problems that keep us stuck also keep us living small.
Want to snap out of it?
If you feel stuck with a particular problem… first, just catch your machine in the act.
When the familiar complaint or problem shows up, don’t react. Just pause. Don’t judge it or try to do the opposite of what you’d typically do.
Ask what the machine is getting out of the problem. You won’t like it. You really won’t want to face it. The machine will fight you on this. Because exposure ruins its game.
Just noticing it, without trying to fix or change anything, is where the freedom begins.