The one thing you need to fix any problem
Very clickbaity, but the answer is legit
This woman does not wanna sing.
Every now and then my dad will offer my mom $1,000 to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the top of her lungs, and every time, my mom refuses.
Seems ridiculous to turn that easy money down—actually, that whole sentence is ridiculous, lol—and every time it comes up, my sisters and I bug my mom about it. Like, come on, Scaramouche! Do the Fandango. (Totally just looked up the song’s lyrics.)
The other day, my mom said that in elementary school, the choir teacher told her to sit in the front because she was cute, but to lip sync because she was a bad singer. She started to realize that was the reason why, even 50 years later, she is too self-conscious to let her own husband hear her sing. This isn’t something that she loses sleep over, but she did jokingly add that she’d probably need therapy if she ever wanted to get over it.
And that, friends, is what you need to solve any problem.
No, not therapy, though, it does help.
What you need to fix any problem is: context!
🤭
If you have a problem, understanding how you got to where you’re at is the first thing you need to do to come up with a solution.
This is the premise of the popular psychology practice of inner child work. Often our adult issues are a result of unmet needs or traumas from childhood, and to get over it or to move forward as adults, we need to heal our inner child.
Prior to therapy, I definitely did not do this.
If something bad ever happened, my optimistic self would invalidate my negative feelings and just skip right to happy thoughts. Sometimes this would temporarily work, but eventually, especially with more significant problems, the bad feelings would always creep through the forced positivity.
In going to therapy, I’ve finally started addressing the sources of my issues.
Whenever I talk about an insecurity that I’m dealing with or an event that triggered a bad emotion, my therapist asks me, “Where do you think that comes from?” And then we proceed to look back into my history to figure out how the issue started. Doing this allows me to come up with a more impactful solution because I can address the source, rather than just the product.
If you belittle an issue, try to fix its symptoms rather than its cause, or if you expect to “just get over it,” chances are it will never go away. You may think it’s gone for a second, but best believe, if you don’t fix the root, that shit’s coming back.
And this does not just apply to personal problems.
Right now, our world is plagued with issues of racism toward people of colour, especially Black and Indigenous people.
Similar to what I did to myself pre-therapy, I see so many people invalidating these major problems, saying that people are overreacting, that these issues are non-existent or are a thing of the past, and that marginalized communities should just get over it.
But, as I learned from brushing off my personal struggles, we will not come to any solutions if people choose ignorance and invalidation over learning about these issues and the context of how they came to be.
Ah, it makes me so mad when people form strong opinions and disparage Black Lives Matter or the terrible circumstances that Indigenous people face when they haven’t put in any effort to understand. Literally, there is nothing worse than blind judgement and strong ignorant opinions.
I get it if you didn’t get it at first. I am definitely still learning and am certainly no expert on anti-racism or on all of the ways that Black and Indigenous people have been wronged with colonization and slavery and the endless number of other things since then.
I’m starting off with these books. I also recommend diversifying your social feeds—follow people of all backgrounds! I quite enjoy the Women of Colour Durham Collective (WOCDC), the Moose Hide Campaign, CBC Indigenous, and privtoprog (this one is just on Instagram). I also highly recommend the movie “13th.” There’s a lot of good stuff here too: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#resources. There’s so, so much!
But, in our information age, if we have questions, we can get answers.
With just a bit of effort, we can find quality resources that can educate us about racism and how we got to where we are. And when we have that context and understand the history and sources of our problems, we will be able to create more meaningful and lasting solutions.
So, friends, if you want to fix your personal problems, if you want to get over your fear of singing and make some cash money, and if you want to end racism, I implore you to get context.
What I’ve learned/some realizations:
In our information age, there’s no reason for us to be ignorant.
Strong, uneducated, and negative opinions are the worst.
We need to understand and fix the source, not just the symptoms.
Context is the one thing we need to fix any problem!