SEEKING FIXES

Problems? Do you suffer from them? Seek fixes for them? The world sure is right now.

And a billion-dollar industry—self-help, motivation, coaching, and counseling—even stands primed to help us deal. The scientific community these days too. It claims to know what’s right.

But how are we doing?

With the evolution of these fields and their experts, are we more at peace? More loving? Less discriminatory? Is the environment cleaner? Are we more productive? Any less stressed?

You know the answer. Generation after generation, we’re consumed by the exact same problems. We’ve tried millions of methods. After all this time, is it actually possible that we’re going to discover the method, guru, or tool that will help do the trick?

Highly unlikely.

But what if there is no problem-solving method? What if methods are the reason we keep perpetuating our problems? And our suffering? What if not trying to fix is the ultimate solution?

Highly likely.

Here’s why (and please read slowly):

Problems result from a resistance to what is. No resistance, no problems. No problems, no problems to solve. Consider that problem-solving comes with a fatal baked-in flaw. It requires the labeling of a situation—an attempt to divide from the whole that which can’t be divided—as both “problematic” and “fixable.” And such labeling is the very act of resisting the singular essence of the whole, resisting what is. Seeking fixes is the seed of all problems.

To end our generational “problem cycle,” then, we must do the opposite of what our suffering (not to mention both self-help and science) is asking us to do. We must stop problem-solving. We must stop seeking fixes.

For when seeking fixes comes to an end, suffering dissolves.

And “problems”?

They’re seen as nothing other than current situations to deal with, which are made of the whole.

Garret

Eckhart Tolle • The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment