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Sunday, November 26, 2006

The Value In Temporary Solutions

Do you know why it's almost impossible to win or succeed consistently? It's because there are no permanent solutions to problems.

Whether you're teaching, staying comfortably and successfully married, bringing up children, or managing employees, maintaining a high sales volume, or managing an organization of any kind. The minute you get one part of the operation functioning smoothly, another part rears its head and starts snapping at the seat of your pants.

This is what I call a "divergent" problem and anything that has anything to do with human beings, politics, economics, marriage, education, children or business is a divergent type of problem.

You should never stop trying to solve the problem simply because there is no permanent solution. The important thing is that you realize that there is no permanent solution so you keep trying different things, and enjoy the journey.

If everyone quite playing sports because one part of their game started falling apart, the golf courses, tennis courts, football fields, and baseball diamonds would become deserted. It's coping and struggling with the problems that helps us grow and mature and develop better skills.

For example, I don't know of a married couple who at some time during their marriage hasn't felt like saying, "I give up, I quit." It's unfortunate that millions do quit, but the quitting comes when they stop trying their best to cope with the problems.

I wonder how many marriages might be saved if the couple sat down and said to each other, "O.K., we've got a divergent problem here. It's impossible to find a solution because there are no permanent solutions, but if we want to stay married, if we want to work at it and try our best to come up with at least temporary solutions to our problems, we can make our marriage work."

Now, not all marriages would make it even with temporary solutions, but I do think that if we understand the fact that no solutions are possible, that marriage, like teaching, like so many things must be lived with on a day-to-day basis, doing the very best we can, looking for opportunities to improve, constantly trying new ways that might work better, that we can keep our sense of humor and keep trying.

When there are permanent and ugly breaks between couples, it's because they don't understand this important point. It's the same with relatives, friends and coworkers. Just think how many relationships could be worked out by simply saying, "I want to get along with you, I think we can have a meaningful and productive relationship or friendship if we'll both work at it."

You're probably familiar with the old saying, "If you don't like the weather wait for an hour or so, it'll change." The same can be said of virtually all human relations and everything that has anything to do with us as individuals.

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