How to deal with problems

There are these problems we have in life that never seem to go away.

Today I realized there are 2 ways to deal with them.

1. Ignore them. Think about something else. Really there isn't anything I can do about the problems I am referring to in this instance--most of the time there isn't much anyone can do. All I can do is ignore them. Approach them gently every now and then but then flee. Refuse to perseverate. Go do something mundane, or something pleasurable. Snap pics. Cook. Read. Ride bike. Go hang out with my beautiful daughter.

Unfortunately *they* wait for me like the kids who want to steal my lunch money at school.

They stay, they don't go. They never get dealt with. They keep stealing my lunch money and my ability to genuinely be happy. I go on. After all, it's like being upset about the weather, the level of control I have is precisely none.

2. Tackle them. Push. Push harder. Find solutions and persevere to the end until the whole thing either blows up or gets solved. Must do this, must call here, must call that person, do this. Try this. Will this work? Push on, keep trying to find the answer, the resolution.

This is the normal way for me. But I think I am being shown that not all problems can be solved this way. It is an empowering way, but it also makes me kind of a wreck.

As I get older I am more doing things the number 1 way than the number 2 way. It makes me more resigned. One of my favorite books is A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. It may not be a masterpiece of writing but it illuminates this thing of problems and dealing with them. The people in the book had the most horrendous of problems. The unfathomable things they lived through.

Lately my friends are all seeming to have marital problems. Their spouses are doing very bad things. Abuse, adultery. How does one get through these problems?

Ronda Haun. She doesn't really know, but she spoke some wisdom into my life. I think it may have been some self-help thing or some such silliness, but it actually helped me alot and I have referred to it often. It is the realm of controls --the things we have control over, the things we don't. A person is supposed to write down what they have control over and what they don't. In doing this, I for one, realized that I will never have any control over the stuff that life brings my way...I can only control how I deal with it.

Some day I will manage this. Lately, with number 1 I feel like I am getting closer. However I did yell at the lawyer on the phone. Oh well.