Out-think The Problem

In order to make an omelet you have to break some eggs — this used to be the thinking I was encouraged to operate with, if I was ever going to do anything.

Of late, I have felt that the urge is to mourn the broken eggs, rather than celebrate the omelette that has been created.

Are there some problems that making certain omelettes create that cannot be solved? Or might it be that we just have to break some different eggs to make a different omelette?

We need to travel faster so we build cars. Cars cause pollution which is bad for us. We work out a way to reduce emissions. On the surface electric cars seem better for the environment than cars running on combustion engines, but we have an issue with the lithium batteries and mining the lithium. What do we do? The wrong answer is to roll over and die and throw the project in the trash.

Often in the attainment of one landmark we discover that we have further to travel — but in order to get across that extra bit of distance we have to stop looking at the problem as a roadblock, and instead see it as just another step in the evolution towards a better answer.

Try and try again. If the successes that we achieved were perfect, and there were never any need to re-calibrate and refine what we have done, it would be fantastic, but often one success will get us to a place where we can see that there are other things that need improving, and when we nail those issues, it may allow us to see further scope for improvement.

What would be the endgame in a situation like this? Perhaps to build an apparatus that allows us to see the improvement comes in increments and that we should not dismantle successes because of attendant problems, but should instead use those wins as a basis for the next movement forward.

Anything that cedes ground to the problem, or signals a retreat, should be tempered with the idea that the lost ground will be regained after regrouping and rethinking the tactics employed. If you scan back through history and look at the things that were once imagined impossible, but became possible later, you will see a pattern of recognizing that there is a problem, and then a series of attempts to solve that problem. The only reason we survive is because we don’t give up.

If you have a dream, and someone keeps pointing at the broken eggs, tell them that you were just experimenting and what they can see is the evidence of a test omelet— that you haven’t quite perfected it yet, but that you are well on your way. If you agree that all you have are broken eggs then you have lost something along the way, and perhaps need to remind yourself how great that omelet is going to be.