Houston, we have much more than just one problem
Trouble, trouble, trouble. Who does not have problems? We all have problems on this planet. What’s more: Even the planet has problems! Pollution, air pollution, the ozone layer, deforestation, drought, warming and above all, the biggest problem on the planet, human beings.
That we don’t have time to go around solving the planet’s problems because we have enough problems. Ever since you were little, life is a succession of problems, not to mention if you don’t get along with your siblings on the day of the succession.
Babies have problems, always. If they didn’t have problems, they wouldn’t be crying all the time. And you have to wait several years until you learn to speak and communicate to express your problems: some speak at 2 years old, others at 3 and many only at 45 (probably because what they have to say is not important).
Children have many problems: Schedules, behavior, food, relationships, sociability and fundamentally, trying to understand how mom and dad’s wallet works.
Teenagers have problems: things grow on their bodiesOthers bite them, the world is crap and on top of that they have to study the geography of Asia and Africa. And from there, lists of more complicated problems begin. Of those that accountants and lawyers have to intervene. Or doctors and psychiatrists. Or police and forensic.
But the biggest problem that adolescents face is, precisely, old. Which have many problems: We older people have accumulated unresolved problems from when we were children, adolescents, young people, adults and from when we asked for a loan that now we can’t get hold of.
Because life is like a math class made up only of bad students: problems are never finished and nobody solves them. But they are added or multiplied. And from problems not even Pythagoras saves you.
Because Life brings more problems than solutions. There is like an imbalance that there is no feng shui to fix it, because no matter how much you put the bed facing southwest in a room scented with bamboo canes, if the upstairs pipe leaks on a Sunday afternoon, go to get a plumber, or a bucket big enough to get you through the night without having to get up to change it.
and there’s like Two main types of attitudes towards problems: face them or let them grow until they are unsolvable and it is no longer your fault.
The problems start one day, and they are like the flu: they take a couple of days to go away. Sometimes, if there is no mutual agreement on who gets the house, the car and the pibles, it can take months, or years.
But, What would life be like if there were no problems? Wouldn’t that be very boring? Imagine a newscast in a world without problems: “Noticias Télam. Everything is alright. See you tomorrow”.
Such a world is unimaginable. Therefore, let us try to imagine for a moment a world without problems. If that were the case, the government would always be the same, although if there are no problems… why do you want a government? Well: someone has to generate the problems.
And on top of that are your family and your friends who, as if your problems weren’t enough, bring you THEIR problems, so you try to minimize the other’s problem to get rid of it with phrases like: “It’s nothing, Cacho. Even Fangio made a ball with the car!” “Don’t worry. It is very rare that you go to jail for having run over someone and you have run away”.
“Don’t worry, man… you won’t have any problems with that insurance company”, and a thousand more lies, because solving our problems already gives us enough trouble to deal with others’. Unless you’re a lawyer, a doctor or a bodyguard, in which case you make a living from that.
The good: there are problems that can be solved. They are solved by putting the bodyassuming responsibilities and having at hand the correct answer to the question: “And this, how can we fix it?”.
Problems have size: there is the little problem, which is resolved at some point; then comes the problem, which may or may not be resolved and finally the bolonki, the king of problemsthat, even if you manage to solve it, it will haunt you all your life with its trauma.
The important thing: set priorities. Some problems are more urgent than others, depending, in many cases, on the distance that separates you from a bathroom.
The key: find the source of the problem. Because if you know how it started, you have a better chance of solving it. What did you do to find yourself with the problem today? What brought you to this problematic situation? Who did you vote for?
Anyway. This text is finished, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s one less problem.
