Solutions R Us

If not me and you, who?

Problems. They’re everywhere. In our personal lives, in the world all around us. Who’s got solutions?

Many problems seem impossible to solve, like conflict in the Middle East and the Ukraine. Climate change. Economic disparity. Gender confusion.

We hear about these every day. Solutions? Not so much.

Then there’s all the personal problems. Health and financial and relationship issues. You could customize your own list.

I did and decided I was fed up with waiting for someone else to sort this or for the stars to line up just right or for A.I. or helpful aliens to come to my rescue or to become enlightened and just transcend them all.

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing but expecting different results. On this basis many of us are crazy and certainly our society is. Here’s one example: trying to end war with war. We have umpteem examples of that not working, yet we keep doing it. What could ever change that insane habit?

And here’s a personal example: complaining. Many of us complain about “them,” those evil doers who are wrecking the world. How has that ever changed things for the better? What makes a difference is when we do something about it, either on the inside (changing our attitude) or on the outside (changing a behavior, like boycotting a company you know is doing harm).

So, as of today, I’m coming up with solutions to my problems and dedicating my writing here to sharing what I learn, in case it might encourage you to do something similar. Solutions R Us.

Fortunately, I was given an extra portion of imagination at birth so it’s easy for me to invent stuff. Here’s the first one.

The I.R. Review

This stands for the Intention Results Review. Here’s how it works.

1. Context: It’s well known that just about the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history. We dare not pause our rush into a better future through innovation (because our competition would beat us to the next prize) to analyze the “side effects.” It’s inevitable just collateral damage, the cost of doing business, etc. For an absolutely incredible example, take a moment to read this.

2. Intention: what did we intend to create or do? This isn’t always obvious and sometimes true intentions are deliberately obscured.

3. Results: what actually happened? Did we succeed or fail? What are the details.

4. Learning: What could we change, not do, or do better?

5. Solution: Could we agree on what’s been learned and develop better approaches in the future, instead of blindly and dumbly repeating past mistakes?

In a word, no.

“We” will never do this. But maybe I can. Maybe you can. And maybe our example will inspire others and, eventually (if we last long enough), the idea will go viral and the powerful “they’s” of this world might try it out.

The best time to conduct your personal I.R. Review is just before sleep. What happened today? What can I learn? What can I do differently tomorrow?

I’m starting to do this and immediately realizing how helpful it would be to have an audio meditation to guide my process. So… I’ll make one. And I’ll post it here, free as usual.

In the meantime, here’s the one I made a few months back, a five-minute program for refreshing our minds. I’ve used it almost every evening and morning since then and the improvements in my mental function are measurable.

Solutions R Us. It’s about time!