Four Ways to Deal With Problems

"There's always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong."

— H.L. Mencken

There are four ways you might deal with problems:
1. Do whatever makes you happy, whatever gives you pleasure or self-gratification ("hedonism")
2. Suppress thoughts, feelings, ideas, or perceptions that trouble or upset you ("denial")
3. Adopt a popular or traditional belief system that promises to solve all your problems for you ("indoctrination");

or

4. Be aware, learn to solve problems, see the truth of things for yourself, and begin to see a Greater Reality beyond the world of problems ("thinking for your self").

The way you approach problems determines how and if you solve them.

Of the four ways, the last one, thinking for your self, is best. The others — no matter how popular or easy — are no solution at all.

Bertrand Russell noted, "Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so." Consider what it means to truly be aware, to think for your self — to reject what is not right, good, or true. This is vastly different from being totally indoctrinated, programmed, and conditioned, so that you are incapable of thinking for your self at all.

Why question life and its most cherished illusions, when it is easier to just go with things rather than have to think about them?

Isn't ignorance bliss? This is, historically, what all tyrants, exploiters, and corrupt authorities count on: your taking the easy way out, your not thinking. They believe that most people prefer to just go along, never really thinking for themselves; they sustain your "need" for them, and your unempowerment. They count on your having an attention span no longer than that of the average 15-second commercial. Yesterday's news is just that, something to not think about, today.

Does ignorance protect us from the consequences of our choices? Of course not. If you refuse to be aware, if you refuse to accept responsibility, if you will not solve your own problems, it would be foolish to put blind faith and trust in others to solve them for you. It would also be unwise to merely go along with the popular sentiment of the moment, whatever that might be, rather than truly think for yourself. You could be greatly disappointed in the end. Popular thinking, based most often in ego and emotion, and shaped or manipulated by indoctrination, is not really thinking at all.

When was the last time you really thought for yourself, or had a different, creative, and good idea that significantly diverged from your educational, social, or religious indoctrination? When was the last time you challenged authority or the status quo?