I have a problem thinking about problems

NOTE ADDED on 6 July 2026: I haven’t been keeping track of my writing topics and I’ve just realized today that I wrote about this a mere two days ago! My reflection on this has deepened, but it’s still on the same topic. I’ve decided to leave them both the way they are as it is a physical reminder of how deeply my problem with problems actually bothered me!

I've recently noticed something about the way my brain works, and I'm not sure I like it. Whenever I encounter a problem, my mind barely spends any time with the problem itself before it races ahead to think of a solution. More often than not, I think of a solution that has already been invented, so with a bit of relief mixed with disappointment, my brain goes, "oh well, next!"

Take hunger for example. My mind thinks, "people are hungry." Almost immediately, my brain goes towards the solution of "we've got to feed them" to "food banks" and follows that with "food banks already exist. Next!"

That bugs me. It really bugs me, because I realize that I never really stopped to think about the problem in detail in the first place.

I didn't ask why people are hungry. I didn't wonder how they got there or what it feels like to live with that uncertainty. I didn't think about the systems or circumstances that contributed to their food insecurity, or whether the hunger or lack of food is actually the symptom of a whole heap of other issues (i.e.: job loss? bankruptcy? medical issues? etc.)

My brain had completely skipped right past the understanding and instead landed on a solution that medicated the symptom rather than the root cause. I couldn't help with the root cause because I didn't know it. I didn't know it because I didn't bother looking into it. All I saw was the symptom.

I started wondering if this was simply my personality, or whether I've been shaped by a culture that's obsessed with answers. I was always encouraged to solve things. To come up with answers. The culture I grew up in celebrates innovation, efficiency, hacks, and quick fixes. The question is almost always, "What's the answer?" Rarely have I been asked, "Do you understand the question well enough?"

The irony is that the best solutions have almost always come from people who spent an extraordinary amount of time studying the problem. They noticed things everyone else overlooked because they resisted the temptation to rush ahead. They lingered. They became curious. They kept asking "why?" long after everyone else had become impatient.

It reminds me of a story about Louis Agassiz and one of his students. On the student's first day, Agassiz placed a preserved fish on a tray and instructed him to study it. The student assumed it would only take a few minutes before he'd be given something more interesting to do. Instead, every time he returned to the professor, eager for the next lesson, Agassiz simply said, "Look at your fish."

Hours passed. Then days.

At first, the student was convinced there was nothing left to notice. But as he continued observing, details began revealing themselves that he would never have seen during those first few minutes: the shape of the scales, the structure of the fins, the subtle asymmetries, the relationships between different features. The fish hadn't changed. His observation had.

The exercise was never really about the fish .... it was about learning to see.

I think I need that lesson.

I suspect I spend far too much of my life looking at problems for thirty seconds before deciding I've understood them. Whether it's poverty, conflict, loneliness, relationships, or even my own emotions, I'm often more interested in getting to an answer than I am in sitting with the question.

The problem is that premature solutions often solve the wrong problem. If we misunderstand the problem, we'll probably prescribe the wrong medicine. If we only treat symptoms, the root cause remains untouched. Real wisdom isn't just knowing what to do; it's knowing what actually needs doing. And that can only come from understanding what's really happening.

I wonder how many opportunities I've missed because I was too eager to move on. How many conversations I've cut short because I thought I already knew where they were going. How many assumptions I've made because they were faster than curiosity.

So I'm trying to develop a new habit.

The next time I encounter a problem, I want to resist that almost automatic urge to leap from "problem" to "solution" to "someone's already done that" to "next." Instead, I will ask another question. Then another. I want to become genuinely curious before becoming useful.

Because the people who make a difference aren't the ones with the quickest answers.

They're the ones who are willing to look at the fish longer than everyone else.