ArpitGarg's Weblog

I got an email from my Boss today. There was a story about a guy who started fixing the problem, before even trying to understand if there was a problem at all. I could totally relate to the story as I myself have been the culprit a number of times.

That got me thinking why it is so. Why do people think there is a problem, when faced with simple situations in life? Why don’t they believe that it is a general situation which might not even require a fix? Why they tend to put in a fix altogether unrelated to the problem at hand.

There are a multiple of reasons I could think of. First and foremost is the victim mindset of the society we live in. We constantly feel people are conspiring against us. With such a mindset, comes paranoia. When a red paint stain, is feared to be blood. When a butcher with a knife is misunderstood a killer. So on and so forth. We should take a step back and gain confidence in ourselves. Make ourselves believe that we are not so unique a personality that everyone will conspire against us.

Next is the rush that we are in. The fast moving modern life has made our mind numb. We don’t stop to think, to dig deep into a situation. In IT world, Google has become our co-conspirator. Most of the times, we are in a rush to finish the job at end, catch a cab and go home and start the cycle all over again the next day. We end up Googling an Error Log snippet, copy the first link we get and email to the team. Most of us don’t even try and read through it completely. The modern life rush and the rat race has rid us of our most important treasure, thinking.

With the victim mindset and maddening rush, we feel we are always being picked upon and end up fixing the wrong problem, if at all. What is important here is to catch a breath. Take a break. Relax. Give yourself space to think. Time management and job prioritization is what will help you the most to handle our life situations in a better way. Decide on what you want to achieve; How much work-life balance you need to have and make effort accordingly.