I've always hated these words.
We try to get help or information, or simply the service we deserve, and we get this crap instead.
"It's not my problem."
We've come to think of these words as the hallmark of an unmotivated, uninspired employee. It reflects the attitude that will not take one far in life.
But as my life gets top-heavy with "shoulds" and "coulds", I'm starting to realize these words could make my life a lot better.
I could be using them myself.
I'm a born problem-solver. It's one of my greatest strengths, but also a one of my worst weaknesses. Show me a problem and my brain is on it.
It's funny... We always think of men as the non-listeners and the instant problem-solvers, but women can be just as bad. We listen—and THEN we problem-solve.
And it's still not always the right thing to do.
In fact, one of the most powerful tools I've learned from a mentor, Deborah Kruger, is to listen, to listen, to listen—and NOT problem-solve. Because most of us know what we need to do, and choose not to, for a variety of reasons—laziness, fear, uncertainty, or lack of real commitment to that course of action. As my friend Karen Lamoureux once said, "We all know what we're SUPPOSED to do."
And organizations are the same way. They KNOW what they need to do--and choose not to, for a variety of reasons.
This morning the wee voices started up—and today they did NOT offer a concrete course of action. It was more a cacophony of situations I've gotten myself into that now demand more and more action, none of which have anything to do with my core vision for myself, my art, my professional goals, my family, my friends or my quality of life. Foster pets with health issues that could harm my family; worthwhile organizations that need huge amounts of my time and commitment, our local school's fierce determination to communicate with me through my kid's backpack despite simple web tools that would do the job so much better and easier.
It suddenly came to me that none of these are MY problems.
Of course, their problems have BECOME my problem. This is a situation I call "spillover." Someone else's problems have spilled over into my life and become my problem.
But I don't need to solve THEIR problems in order to fix the spillover.
Once I realized these are all someone else's problems and they don't need to BECOME my problem, a flood of insight comes.
If it's truly MY problem, then I can take care of it. If it's something under my control, or standing in the way of something critical to my success or goals, I need to deal with it.
If it's not under my control, yet still critical to my success or goals, I need to find a way around it or through it.
If it's not under my control, and not critical to my success goals, I need to let it go. It may simply not be my fight.
Sometimes, of course, we feel called to pick up the fight. That's when great social change is made, and great wrongs are made right—or at least visible to the public eye. Rosa Parks made history by being too tired to give up her seat on a city bus, and we are a better country for it.
But I also understand now that sometimes, it's simply someone else's problem.
My mother used to say, "Pick your fights" and that phrase has a whole new meaning for me today.
