The Problem Isn’t My Problem

By the time I feel
overwhelmed,
stressed,
pissed.
I’ve already started moving things around.
My calendar.
My priorities.
My effort.
I look for the fix.
Any fix.
More discipline.
Better boundaries.
A cleaner system.
Sometimes that helps.
Other times it produces faster inside the wrong frame.
That’s the classy problem.
I’m looking for a solution before I’ve told the truth.
The truth about what I’m in.
What I call the problem is my diagnosis.
The resentment.
The pressure.
The urgency.
The scattered feeling.
All real.
All signal.
A better question helps me more than my faster answer.
What is here?
That question slows me down to see what I was missing.
To see that I was focused on what was missing.
The problem is not the decision.
It is the story I wrapped around it.
The problem isn’t my problem.
It is my signal.