According to a fable retold in the book “Play to Win” by Larry Wilson and Hersch Wilson, it turns out that every human being has 83 problems at all times.
The fable is as follows: A troubled man seeks enlightenment from a wise old woman. She tells him that she sees he is very troubled and that this is understandable since she knows he has 83 problems. He asks how she knows this and she tells him the universe is very fair; everyone always has 83 problems. He asks her what he should do about this and she says “solve them!” When the man asks her what will happen next she tells him he will receive more problems because everyone always has exactly 83. She then tells him that the largest problem is the 84th, which is believing that you should not have the other 83!
This fable and the book that contains it encourages us to embrace problem solving as a core element of the human experience. We grow through the experience of facing adversity and finding ways to arrive at solutions. To operate with the belief that we will one day “be finished” is to assume that there is a future point where we no longer need to grow.
Rather than complain or focus on our problems, we should consider the alternative of getting very, very good at solving them!
