I earned a living providing solutions to people’s problems. Or so I thought. Now, given more space for reflection, I am suspecting that 99.99% of the time, I was out of step with people who approached me with their problems. I am hard pressed to pinpoint one single person with whom I sat to help fix their concerns who came out of my consultation truly empowered and liberated. That was after all my conscious agenda, to equip the client with more, different, or better tools for dealing with their issues.
As I refrain from offering advice or solutions, I am observing that people who moan and groan about this, that, or the other, and who may even sincerely think they want a problem solved, for the most part don’t. Instead, and usually unbeknownst to them, what they want are any or all of the following:
* To feel good, even be praised that they noticed a problem existed
* To feel superior to people who give them a headache
* To invite pity, compassion, camaraderie, support, fellowship, commiseration that they are saddled with the problem
* To give themselves permission to be appalled, to gloat, to bristle, to feel something or someone beneath them
* To be admired for being so long suffering, for enduring so much, for tolerating such ingratitude, inhumanity, selfishness, incompetence, inadequacy, etc.
How do I know this? Because I find traces of any or all of these in problems that I keep harping about.
