What Happens When Problems (Past) Meet Our Opportunities (Present)?

There is a well-known saying that “if the only tool you have is a hammer, treat everything as if it were a nail.” A person who only has a hammer will likely try to fix every challenge, often without considering other options. There is a belief that we must fix and address our problems rather than question them and focus on what we actually need.

Because too often, when we see that there are so many possibilities and alternatives, fear sets in and we feel overwhelmed. But what if we saw opportunities in our problems?

We may be trying to manage our weight and when we enter a Western supermarket, there are so many abundant choices we can make. Advertising money and shelf positioning has been invested in these very choices to tantalize us with the latest and greatest variety of offerings. 

We can blame the abundance of possibilities for any unhealthy choice we might make and then look at a diet as a way to control our eating and spending. But what if there is another way? What if we chose a healthy lifestyle as a way of life?

One of the biggest shifts we are experiencing over the next five years is our ability to teach ourselves to move away from seeing everything as a problem that needs to be fixed. We have been trained and educated to always find a solution to every problem and to not explore their root cause so we could weed them out of our lives. 

Changing Our Story is Where We Can Begin to See Opportunities

We live in a world where we can get mired in our never-ending problems, which always need a solution. Even organizations like the United Nation have created 17 Strategic Development Goals (SDG) to solve humanity’s biggest problems—from ending hunger to sustainable cities and communities by 2030. And yet, despite the trillions of dollars, resources and energy we have thrown at humanity’s biggest problems—from hunger to human trafficking—they still exist and require more and more solutions (money, resources and energy). 

When you start to question everything, you will uncover that there’s no real solution in sight because this approach is broken and breaking apart. Will everyone on the planet really have access to clean drinking water in 2030 or access to healthy nutrition?

We are constantly being taught prevention, like don’t pollute, and yet our oceans are filled with debris and careless disregard to our environment. We can declare a crisis as the solution and shame people into action.

But until we look at the root cause of how separated we are from nature, not much will change. People will throw cigarette butts on the beach and use an ashtray in their homes.

Until we increase awareness that we are not separate from nature, these solutions will not solve the deep-rooted lack of disregard for our environment. So, take this as an example and ask yourself, what is the opportunity here?

What if we focused on humanity’s biggest opportunities and build the systems we need to thrive? What is possible now? 

Be sure to read Part 2 of this article.