𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐄𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭.

Our days are filled with real problems. These are the problems that need our attention. A child who needs help with their studies. A budget that does not quite balance. A misunderstanding with a loved one that waits to be mended. A body that needs exercise and care. These problems are here. They are present. They ask for our time and our effort.

But our mind has a different agenda. Our mind often wanders away from these real problems. It becomes obsessed with problems of its own creation. It spins stories of hypothetical futures and imagines catastrophes that have not happened. What if I lose my job next year? What if this relationship falls apart someday? What if a terrible illness is waiting for me? What if my children forget me in my old age?

These are not real problems. They are phantom problems. They are ghosts that live only in the corridors of our thinking. Yet, we give them our precious energy. We pour our time and our worry into solving puzzles that do not yet exist. We try to build a fortress against a storm that is not on the horizon.

The real work, the most important work, is to learn to tell the difference. Is the problem I am wrestling with a problem that is here, in this room, in this moment? Or is it a problem that exists only in the theatre of my mind?

Let us practice pulling our attention back. Let us drag our focus away from the imaginary battles and place it firmly on the real ground beneath our feet. The real work is here. The real need is here. The real life that needs to be lived is happening now, waiting for us to stop solving problems that do not exist and start engaging with the one that truly does.