never know the answer to. There’s nothing wrong with looking for answers that might actually exist, but, when the search isn’t bearing fruit, there’s a strong possibility that answers aren’t to be had, and obsessing about finding them is a distraction to figuring out where the real keys are—and what you’re going to do next.
People prefer to believe that, with enough fact gathering, insight, and the heart-to-heart sharing of honest, heretofore suppressed, and probably embarrassing emotion, any problem can be sourced and solved. In fact, knowing why you’ve got a bad habit usually gives you no ability to stop it, and the search for deeper knowledge sometimes serves as an excuse for waiting until it’s easier to stop, which it never is. So getting to the root of your problem is often antitherapeutic, and, at worst, a giant waste of time.
Or, if therapy hasn’t solved a problem, you wonder whether it’s been intense and long-lasting enough, or if you’ve been sincere enough, or if your therapist is skilled enough. If the problem involves a relationship, you wonder if you’ve worked hard enough to express painful and negative feelings—which again, surprise, often makes things worse.
Here are telltale signs that your quest for a deep solution—or Holy Grail—must end:
• The amount of searching you put in is inverse to the amount you have been able to change your problem
• Your friends, kids, and pets have made it clear that the subject of your past/problems/bullshit is closed
• Your therapist has been less blunt than your friends, kids, and pets, but is clearly falling asleep
• You’ve revised the past so many times, your déjà vu has déjà vu
Among the wishes people express when they feel there must be an answer to an unsolvable problem are:
• To figure out what happened that caused them to lose the control they once had
• To find out why they can’t do something when they’ve always been good at doing something similar
• To understand why they can’t stop being drawn to doing something bad
Here are three examples:
I don’t understand why I started drinking again after ten years of sobriety. I had no desire to drink—going to bars didn’t bother me, nor did having liquor in the house or being around friends who were drinking. Then suddenly I was tense over a problem at work, and I figured I should be able to control myself after all these years, so I had a drink. It was fine, I had only one, and kept to a one-per-day limit until a week later, and now, three months later, I have no control over my drinking and I’m back to square one. My goal is to figure out what happened to me and why.
I don’t know why I avoid finishing certain tasks at work. If something involves talking to people, and I can get it done quickly, I’ll work hard until I’m finished, but if I’ve got to fill out a lot of forms and no one is looking over my shoulder, I let things slide until I’m really in trouble. I’ve always been like that and my desk is piled high with papers that I’m afraid to look at. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m afraid to succeed or afraid that I’m living out my father’s prediction that I’d be a fuckup, but it’s crippling my life. My goal is to figure out whether I’m lazy or have a psychological issue that prevents me from succeeding.
I’m always attracted to the wrong kind of guys, and it always ends poorly, mostly with me getting dumped, sometimes with me getting either physically or verbally abused along the way. A therapist told me I choose men who remind me of my father, who was a charismatic sweet-talker who dumped my mother when she was pregnant with me. I think that’s a fair assessment, and it’s time for me to find a better sort of person, but no matter how hard I try, I keep on dating assholes. My goal is to figure out why I’m so attracted to Mr. Wrong and how to get more attracted to someone nice.
Whenever we’re perplexed by weaknesses that don’t make sense, questioning why is as helpful from the mouth of an adult as it is from a four-year-old. If you can’t understand why you’ve started drinking again after ten years, or can’t get work done when you’ve done it before, or can’t find a better guy when you know what you’re doing wrong, you have a right to wonder why. Asking the question more than once or twice, however, is a Job-like move that may help you express frustration, but will not help you overcome it.
What neurobiology has taught us is that every action we take depends on multiple unique subcapacities, and all it takes is for one of those subcapacities to be weak or broken, and our ability to function is compromised.
If you resume drinking, it’s not because you’re a weak person, but because drinking triggers something in your brain that says, “I’ve got to do that again.” If you have trouble with paperwork, it may be because your brain has trouble translating or using written symbols in a specific way (numbers, maps, English). If you can’t change whom you’re attracted to, you may be directed by a part of your brain that, whether it was programmed before birth or a few years later, can’t be changed now.
So the answer you’ll get from your maker, when you finally meet Him or Her and get to ask why, is the same one you got from your mother when she didn’t know the answer and didn’t want to waste time— “Because I said so, now go make yourself useful.”
Of course, knowing there’s no root answer, or that, at the very least, it’s unobtainable, doesn’t relieve you of responsibility for dealing with a problem; it just spares you having to take an exam on its origins. Depending on how obsessed you are with a Faustian quest for knowledge or how avoidant you are of messy, painful tasks, you will or won’t like putting the quest aside, accepting the uncertainty of not understanding a problem’s roots, and nevertheless dedicating yourself to managing it.
Having given up on the false hope that deep understanding would make it possible to solve your problem, gather motivation by reviewing your reasons for imposing change on yourself and your life. Doing it to please someone or to look better are not motivations that tend to last; instead, decide for yourself whether change is necessary for you to be the kind of person you want to be. Then, if you find good reasons rooted in your values, remind yourself frequently what they are so that you can ignore pain, frustration, and humiliation while seeking to strengthen your management of yourself.
Instead of trying to figure out your problem, use your best tools for managing it, be they finding a rehab program, an organizational coach, or a group of girlfriends whose opinions on jerks you trust. Having given up the quest for a deep solution and the urge to ask questions, find the motivations that matter and learn how to take action.
Quick Diagnosis
Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:
• A clear understanding of what’s wrong
• Complete control over your problem
• An easier way of dealing with your problem, now that you know its origins
• A reliable way of treating and preventing it
Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:
• Know as much as anyone knows about a problem while accepting your inability to know more
• Accept the pain and confusion of having to deal with a problem you don’t understand
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