PROBLEM SOLVING - Ask What Not Why

Why? This seems to always be the first thing that we consider when we are confronting a personal problem with ourselves. When most scientists study human behavior it is certainly what they will usually focus on. It does seem to make the most sense, because there is an undeniable fact that a person’s present behavior is the result of their experiences in the past. How can an intervention that leaves the past causes untouched have any lasting effect in the present?
Maybe the past has no real bearing on the SOLUTION that I need deal with the problem that I’m facing right now. Let’s look at the two possibilities involving the effect of the past on the present. I feel that both lead to the conclusion that only WHAT is happening in the present is significant -
1 The significance of causes in the past maintaining current problems is only a fascinating but inaccurate myth. If this is the case than desirable change of present behavior can only occur by dealing with ones present view of truth and reality.
2 There is a causal relationship between past and present behavior (what I believe). But since past events are unchangeable, either we are forced to abandon all hope that change is possible, or we must assume that the past has influence over the present ONLY by way of a persons PRESENT interpretation of past experience. If this is so than the past becomes a matter not of truth and reality, but of looking at it in the here and now by means of re-interpretation.

From what I have heard people share at meetings and have also witnessed from observing people that have undergone real transformations (especially spontaneous ones) is that knowing why is not a necessity. In fact, trying to understand why one has a problem as a precondition to inducing change can be a road-blocking assumption. [Check out my posts on the 9 dot problem to see an example how false preconditions put into a solution can make a problem unsolvable]
I believe that focusing too much on why can actually be detrimental for other reasons. Asking why can blind us to the important facts that need to be addressed most directly. It often happens that we only become aware of the important facts, if we suppress the question ‘why?’ and then in the course of the investigation these facts lead to finding a workable solution.
Personal experience has shown me another danger. Trying to solve problems based on ‘why?’ (looking into the past) can also lead to misdirected solutions, because many current personal problems may have stared by one series of reasons yet persist in the now for different ones. I spent many years trying to understand why I became and addict. I gained much insight about the reasons that I crossed the line into drug abuse, but all of this self-knowledge can never cure my current condition. I crossed a line I wish that I never crossed at some time in the past, there is no way to step back from that line. I may be in recovery, but will always be an addict, no matter how conclusively I may feel that I understand why.

It would seem that in deliberate intervention into human problems, the most pragmatic approach is not to question why but what.
We CAN take a problem as it exists here and now, without ever understanding why it got to be that way, and in spite of our ignorance of its origin and evolution we can do something about it. In doing so we are asking ‘what?’.
What is the problem?
What is going on here and now?

Because modern thinking is tainted by looking at situations scientifically, any attempt to look at a problem only in terms of present structure and consequences is considered the height of superficiality. AA has the slogan “keep it simple”. This slogan is not used because alcoholics are idiots and need to keep things simple - it is used because it WORKS!

I don't want to leave you with the idea that 'why' has no significance to self-improvement. It certainly does! I tried to stress the importance of 'what' in terms of finding practical solutions to problems so that change can occur. Once a transformation has progressed to a degree, the 'whys' of the past will lead to the insight needed to make sense of and find serenity in your new life. First though, the crisis of the problem must be attacked. Ask WHAT.