Problem Diary

I've just been tipped onto an idea by something my favourite poet said on his podcast recently. The idea is that whenever you are faced with the sense of being overwhelmed or whenever the Fear rises up in you, and threatens to make you and your life small, combat it in the following way: isolate the cause of the fear and describe how you can alleviate it. The key thing to remember, however, is that your natural instinct will be to simply get rid of the problem in the easiest way, which will probably mean avoiding rather than engaging with it. But you never improve at problem-solving by avoidance; you don't up your skill-level in that area. If anything, every time you get rid of a problem by avoiding it, you probably lose skill points in that area. You legitimise the fear, and you'll be even more scared of it the next time it comes around. This is why, as I've written on this blog before, it's important to embrace the fear, because fear is pointing you in the direction of growth. But more important than just mentally embracing the fear-feeling, I think, is that pragmatic suggestion of isolating what is causing the fear (the problem) and how to alleviate it without avoidance. I think I want to buy a notebook for this purpose, to be my Problem Diary.

In a Problem Diary, one makes sure to reflect, every day when you wake up, on any uncomfortable feelings you have in your chest and to list possible causes. This is Step 1. Step 2 is to tackle the isolated issue in the following format: Problem - Response. You write the problem in a simple sentence, and you write a detailed way to respond in a paragraph or so. You do this with every problem you managed to isolate. You should probably also give yourself a time-scale in which you should have genuinely attempted to tackle the problem, e.g. today, 1 week, 2 weeks, a month, etc. Ideally, you type "solve x problem" into some kind of app that will bring up a reminder on the day that your time-scale dictates.

So far, so good, I think. There's only one issue. I think this would be too depressing overall. Waking up every morning, reflecting specifically on what is ailing you the most. Your entire life would be angled towards discomfort and sadness. So, I think, Step 3 of a Problem Diary entry should be to list one thing for which you are grateful for every thing you listed as being a problem. That way you are reminded of what is good in life also. I'm tempted to say that you should go through a Step 4 as well, one that is just like Step 2, but is rather about maximising what you're grateful for, in the format: Blessings - Response. You would literally be counting your blessings every day. This might prove to end up being somewhat of a long morning schedule, but perhaps this is what someone non-religious like me should do instead of praying.

I like these ideas. I'm going to buy a notebook after deadlines, and see how long I can keep this up.

(I invariably fail at keeping physical diaries).

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