It took me a really long time to get rid of these thoughts, not because I have trouble purging unwanted thoughts (this is something I have extensive practice in), but because they didn’t seem unwanted. They seemed quite important! Burnout was the biggest problem in my life, so it seemed only natural that I should think about it all the time. I would think to myself, “I have to fix burnout! I must constantly try to optimize everything related to this! Maybe if I rearrange the desks in my office I won’t be burnt out anymore.” I thought, for a long time, that this was “optimization” and “problem solving”. It took a depressingly long time for me to identify it for what it really was, which is just plain old stress and worry.
Bingo. When you have a seemingly intractable problem, always remember to ask yourself if what you’re trying to do to solve the problem is making it worse. That’s where intractable problems come from.
Bingo. When you have a seemingly intractable problem, always remember to ask yourself if what you’re trying to do to solve the problem is making it worse. That’s where intractable problems come from.