What Problems do You Want?
Do you fantasize about life without your current problems?
Do you imagine how great things could be once you’ve got solutions for the stuff that’s stressing you out?
I’m so sick of this job: I can’t wait until I’m in my ‘dream’ career
It’s gonna be awesome to get out of this depleting marriage and find a compatible partner
Everything will be easier once I’m out of debt and earning more
Most of us dream about better futures - and sometimes, when conditions shift, life really does improve.
For example, I recently got a new nanny for my young kids. In the past, it was a challenge to coordinate multiple childcare providers and I was always doing extra leg-work to juggle the logistics. Having just one care provider streamlines my life and alleviates some small but persistent pain points: I’m grateful!
Maybe you once lived in a crappy apartment with a horrible landlord and your toilet leaked and your neighbours had loud arguments and their footsteps were thunderous. Now that you’re in your quiet, spacious, well-cared-for studio loft, perhaps you honestly feel blessed every single day. Months and years later, you adore your living space and don’t take it for granted. That kind of ‘evergreen gratitude’ does happen.
However, the kicker is that often, very soon after we achieve or experience something we dreamed of, when ‘the new normal’ is in place and the novelty has worn off, most of us very quickly forget to actively appreciate our present reality - the once longed for and idealized circumstances - as remarkable and wondrous. And sometimes we don’t get what we bargained for and the new situation is not at all what we imagined.
There’s a psychological term for this, called: ‘the arrival fallacy.’
The idea is that we tend to fantasize about arriving in new circumstances, believing that shifted conditions will transform our fundamental wellbeing. However, when we actually arrive at the desired destination, we often don’t experience the situation to be as amazing as we imagined it would be - or very soon after an initial surge of appreciation, we habituate to those circumstances.
Quickly and unconsciously, we feel unsatisfied with the status quo, we set our minds to somewhere else we want to arrive and we’re in that loop of fantasizing about the future again.
So, one option is that we keep playing out this cycle, driven by the assumption that our internal experience will be enhanced through changing external conditions.
But if you wanna bust out of this arrival fallacy loop and be more conscious in how you think about and approach problems in your life, I’ve got a few suggestions:
Instead of fantasizing about a life without problems, embrace the reality that life will always have them. Always. (Sorry to burst your bubble! Please don’t shoot the messenger)! ;)
Remind yourself that no one is living a problem-free life. Not Beyonce, not the Kardashians, not Bill and Melinda Gates (hey - since I first wrote this, they’ve gotten divorced. Case in point).
Hey, important side note: structural conditions are real. Some people and groups are getting the short end of the ‘collective stick’ while others are getting the long end of it.
Let’s face it, some people’s problems are on the scale of how to manage and invest their buckets of money and deal with intrusive in-laws and other people’s problems are trying to access healthy food and cover rent and get a restraining order against an abusive ex and they are coping with significant levels of collective intergenerational trauma that manifest daily. Privilege and structural power are deeply impactful and our individual experiences cannot be isolated from social, political, and economic contexts.
However, it is also true that despite privilege or how incredible someone’s life looks on Instagram, every single human experiences problems and pain.
No exceptions.
Pro Tip: when you see glossy, shiny pics, remember: icebergs. You’re only seeing the surface and all that content is curated. It’s easy to get hooked by the facade and forget that there’s a whole huge mass of energy underneath these images, much more complex than superficial appearances.
So, when you remember that there will always be challenges in life and that everyone is suffering, when you know that no one’s truly breezing along on easy street, you can drop the tendency to ‘compare and despair’ or get down on yourself and compound your suffering.
But what about the richness of a life where we set meaningful goals, enjoy achieving them, and expand our lives (often with benefits for our families and communities)?
While it may seem like I’m contradicting myself, I believe that this is a wonderful way to live.
I’m not trying to promote that we resign ourselves to quiet desperation, reminding ourselves that future fantasies are only projections and thus heck, let’s not even bother aiming to create new possibilities.
Not at all. I absolutely want you to kick some old problems to the curb and to grow.
I’m a coach, for goodness’ sake: I’m all about conscious evolution and creating new realities!
Almost nothing lights me up like witnessing people transcend limits and grow into stronger, wiser versions of themselves, doing amazing things that scare their pants off and thrill them in equal measure.
I mean: that is magic!
Further, I wholeheartedly believe that our ability to desire, to dream and to have faith in wonderful new possibilities is an essential component of a healthy, stable, thriving human mind - and that these inner capacities help us take powerful, creative action in our lives and world.
However, what I also know for sure is that even people who are constantly growing and achieving vital and brave dreams still have problems.
There’s even a little phrase for this evolutionary experience: new level, new devil - the idea being that when you expand your life, you’ll outgrow old pain points and inevitably encounter new ones.
So, perhaps you screw up your courage to leave your corporate job and start the small craft brewery. You appreciate the creative entrepreneurial path, but you’re more anxious than you expected to not have your old benefits and steady pay check. You lost your old problems. You gained new ones.
Or you leave your deadened marriage and seek out a new partner. Maybe that next relationship doesn’t work out. Or it does - but even though you’re sympatico with your new sweetheart, you’re challenged by unexpected frictions and different areas of difficulty than the ones you once bemoaned with your ex.
Maybe you pay off your debts. You can throw cash around without feeling stretched so thin, you’re freaking proud to have kicked your finances to the next level AND life isn’t perfect. Your favourite cousin recently got cancer, your spirited toddler is straining your last nerve, and why is it still so damn exhausting to figure out what’s for dinner? Like, every night?!
In spite of genuine enhancement, life is still, amidst new pleasures and freedoms, threaded with pain.
So, all this musing leaves me wondering:
Can you more deeply appreciate - even enjoy!? - the problems you have now?
Could you embrace them like puzzles, revere them as cosmic riddles? Let them be your own ‘grit in the oyster:’ tend them and nurture faith that you may ultimately transmute them into pearls?
Can you remind yourself that you’ll live your way from one set of questions into answers and eventually into the next evolution of questions… and that this is just how life goes?
Super Rockstar (You’re Almost Enlightened!) Bonus: Can you detach a bit, view your life with a little distance and savour the evolution of plot and characters almost like a movie?
Because for all the ways you wish your future will be ‘better,’ I’m gonna bet it will mostly be... different.
Heck, I hope happier. I wish you healthier. More connected, purposeful, whatever you long for. Rich, in the fullest sense of the word. All the good things!
I have faith that you can influence your life and your future and create amazing new realities (and please consider hiring me if you want support to do this).
Yet, with all that said, I’m still gonna place my bets on your future being less about better than now and more about simply being different.
So, instead of fantasizing about not having problems, I encourage you to ask yourself:
What Problems Do You Want?
What future challenges will mean that you’ve taken courageous risks and dared to move in joyful directions?
Would you love the ‘problem’ of earning and managing more money?
Will you embrace your new partnership and the ‘problem’ of figuring out how to re-jig your life?
Are you ready to step into new levels of professional power and to experience new accompanying problems?
It’s wonderful to grow out of ruts, to release old problems we’ve rubbed against for months… or years… and to claim new problems.
We’re wired for learning, feeling purposeful, developing mastery, solving problems: it’s rich and exciting to expand our way into new problems.
But you will never have no problems.
That’s all.
That’s the story I’m encouraging you to let go of.
Be wary of denigrating your present and fantasizing about your future, caught in loops of oscillating hope, fear and trying to wrestle life to adhere to your ideals.
Aim for embracing your present (as it is!) while connecting courageously with your authentic desires for the future. Enjoy the ride itself as you live into what will come. Be kind. Relax as much as you can. Laugh! Learn.
In the end, when it comes to arriving, the only place you can ever truly arrive is in the present.
(Spiritual masters, in all traditions, are always going on and on about the damn here and now). ;)
So, arrive here - your beautiful here, in all its flawed glory - and here’s a shout out to your best future problems, too!
In solidarity on this wonderful and bewildering human ride with you -
P.S. If you want support to navigate or create some important change in your life, be in touch for a free consult to explore coaching. I’d love to connect with you!
Nicola Holmes is a Life Coach who helps people turn their potent questions, dream and longings into inspired action. With warmth and wisdom, she’ll guide you to untangle constraints and cultivate courage to create a more aligned and joyful life. She has a BASc in Human Development, an MEd in Adult Learning and spent two decades working in the non-profit sector. Along with coaching for the past 14 years, she’s mama to two young spirited kids and dedicated to Buddhism. Having experienced long Covid and a move over the past two years, she brings deep empathy to others who are exploring how they’ve changed and who they’re becoming in turbulent times. Check out Nicola @nicolaholmescoach or join the email party for inspiration and resources to fuel the changes you want.