Strange and funny first-principles-y conversation with wife: if you wanna fix problems, you need to have some kind of model in your mind for how problems get fixed. I think I mostly take for granted that I have this in my “operating system” and rarely think about it explicitly

There are many ways to think about problems, I think my general thing is... you experience some kind of frustration, you try and guess what the source of the frustration is, and things can go in many directions from there, many ways of addressing, resolving, mitigating...

sometimes it can be that the experience of frustration is itself something that can be resolved; maybe there’s something wrong with your sensors, or with the way you process the information coming through your sensors - beliefs, assumptions. Or maybe it’s something outside of you

Sometimes it’s something that can be easily addressed by moving something around, like maybe your windows are dirty and you need to clean your windows. Easy. Maybe your energy levels are low- that’s more complicated, you have to investigate, develop a theory, test a hypothesis

often when you dig into any significant problem deeply enough you’ll find that it’s connected to lots of things - with energy levels it could be your diet, which could be affected by being a picky eater, and you might have some childhood issues to resolve there

personal things are often intertwined with social things- maybe your childhood issues had to do with school, and/or your peer group, which may be influenced by broader cultural things. Here you have to be careful to be clear abt what’s helpful to address your initial frustration

A common trap people seem to fall into is they conflate all the problems, which can compound their frustration into something unmanageable. Personal frustrations with daily life situations get intertwined with large scale societal problems that may not be resolved in our lifetime

In my experience it’s important for people to feel like they have some amount of influence over their lives. This is largely a framing and project management problem. It’s about what you choose to focus on, how you define success and meaning

A lot of people exert a tremendous amount of energy trying to solve a problem within some frame that isn’t actually addressing their frustration. Escapism, workaholism, etc. It’s always a good idea to periodically sit down and ask yourself what you’re doing + why you’re doing it

There’s a spectrum of possible relationships you could have with problems themselves. Some find problems to be scary, overwhelming, frustrating, painful, tedious. Others find them to be interesting, challenging, compelling. You can move the slider on this. It’s about framing

loosely, if you’re frustrated/overwhelmed by life, it’s often helpful to catalog your problems and look for a manageable one to solve. If you’re bored, it’s worth trying to find something ambitious & challenging to do that will stretch you. Solving problems in flow state is

You might not be able to end racism or sexism or climate change anytime soon. But you can mentor young people. You can fight for more and better representation. You can help raise awareness about large and wicked problems, which is part of making them more solvable

When thinking/worrying about large scale problems, you should to appreciate that large problems require a lot of coordination from a lot of people to solve. So if you’re serious about contributing, it helps to think about how other people can use, share & interface with your work

Oh- one of the most simple and powerful ways to navigate the problems of life is to realize that you are very unlikely to be the first person to have a problem. We can always learn from our predecessors who had similar problems. Covid is not our first pandemic, for eg

generally speaking I think a lot of people are conditioned to think that they have to deal with their problems privately and in isolation. you don’t! you don’t necessarily have to be all public about it, but you can seek out trusted peers to work through things with together

a concept my ex-boss introduced to me that I like is the “desired end-state”. Simply, what is the outcome that you want? What specifically has to happen in material reality that will satisfy you? (Once you write this down you can interrogate and analyze this productively)

“I will be satisfied when I have $1M in the bank” - okay sure- tho why exactly? What does the money do? What do you want to buy, or have the option of buying? What are the emotional realities you seek? Security? Prestige? It’s worth being honest and precise with yourself abt this

“I will be satisfied when I get a gf” - sure but why? What are the assumptions you have about what it means to have a partner? What does it mean for you narratively? Are your friends/family involved in this thinking? It’s normal to want companionship- it’s also cool to introspect