No Problems, Just Solutions

In an ongoing endeavor to keep the faith and remain positive, I’m always looking for ways to reinforce positivity over negativity. Doesn’t always work, but I do try.

Oddly, the other day, a saying popped into my allergy-dense head. There are no problems, just solutions.

Like the aches and sniffles that can taunt and tease like bad late-night comedy, it wouldn’t let go. It was comparable to having a song replay itself over and over … and over and over. And so, on the third day of hearing the unrelenting “mantra”, inquisitiveness [finally] took control. What was the origin of the saying? Had someone coined it? I put on one of my private eye’s sleuthing caps.

Yes, indeedy-do: the phrase is attributed to John Lennon. (As Mr. Spock would have said: fascinating.) A little more Googling and I learned the phrase was in Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels” (a song released posthumously in 1981).

People askin’ questions
Lost in confusion
Well, I tell them there’s no problem
Only solutions.

There are no problems, just solutions. It’s rather like viewing situations/life/challenges with glass-half-full or glass-half-empty eyes. If you choose to see hardships and trials as relentless and/or all-consuming, you’ve got a half-empty mentality; if you determine to see adversities as part of the formula that comprises a process that leads to an answer, you’ve got a half-full mindset.

Problems are frustrating and wearying; solutions hope-infusing and confidence-inspiring. Both exist. But only one should be embraced. If you’re having a bad day, only you can make it better. If you want something done, but aren’t sure where the money, time, or energy will come from, sit back, and figure it out. Possibilities exist.

Don’t take “no” for an answer if that’s not what you want to hear. I know I don’t. There are things I want to accomplish—and will, come hell or high water … an expression, incidentally, that dates back to an 1882 article in an Iowa newspaper (case you were curious).

Have a positive and [more than] glass-half-full week, everyone.