The Elephant in the Room

The first step of trying to deal with either difficult situations and emotions is recognizing and understanding that they exist. People find this the most difficult one such that those who have problems with substance abuse will never get into any progress without them saying they have a problem. This is the same thing even the mildest inconvenience one could experience. It is like acknowleding the obvious, the big elephant in the room that everyone is attempting to ignore. This acknowleding phase is something I know personally but this is not as easy as it seems, and this blogpost will explain why.

A problem does not just involve one factor.

We are all made to believe that a problem has a main cause that occurred before it. One has to find it to know what measures one could do to address it. It is therefore crucial for one to know the problem well to determine the factor that influence it to happen. This characterizes the linear perspective of things. However, problems do not exist in such chronology or logic. Significant things do happen with an unfortunate minimal changes. There is no proportional explanation or any kind of association. This is the reason why some may not see recognizing the problem as beneficial as others would think.

People affected may not be willing to accept the consequences afterwards.

The inconvenient truth is that solving problems may not always be convenient as we think. Some people would opt not to do anything because the fear of making it worse, or doing something unnecessarily. People ofcourse want to have positive changes but the process involved in making situations better may not be an attractive thought for some. Acknowledging the problem may be seen as forcing oneself to initiate the process, which may give further inconvenience. Nothing is ofcourse perfectly convenient. Life is never easy but this argument is not even sufficient to convince individuals to do something. Some would likely procastinate, wait or not even dare to do something.

Recognizing the problem does not necessarily mean solving it.

Pessimistic as it seems but the reality is that making the first step would not guarantee a positive outcome. Yes perhaps others would argue that but to start somewhere will eventually lead to something. One should do something at least to get the desired change. Quite true. However, when situations involve emotions, close relationships and personal beliefs and principles; problem-solving becomes very subjective. First step towards problem-solving would be perceived as mere hindrances to another existing situations. The problem lies in the fact that we human beings deal not just few problems, but multitude of problems with varying intensity and requirements. Step one in one problem would be seen a premature step in another problem. That makes life complicated.

Problem-solving is not as easy as it seems like how it is taught in school. Life shows a different side of reality. There is no concrete steps to follow to ensure things would be better. It is not even certain moving forward is the best answer. It could be stepping back. Recognizing the elephant in the room maybe an obvious thing to do, but even how big the elephant is, people tend to ignore it. There are certainly things that hinder us to see that elephant, reasons  we either know or don't.