The Problem Is...

Imagine a big pothole on the road. A farmhand is driving a truck full of eggs from the farm to the market. The truck falls in and out of the pothole. Eggs break.

The farmhand says The Problem is the truck can’t fly over the pothole. So the farmer and the engineer start building wings and jetpacks for the truck.

What if the farmhand said The Problem is there is a big pothole on the way to the market, the truck falls in the pothole which makes the eggs break. Now the farmer can do several things: call the county to repair the pothole, repair the pothole themselves, try a different route, give the farmhand a taller seat, or glasses or both so the farmhand can see the pothole coming and swerve, put better shocks and springs on the truck, put the eggs in a padded basket, and on and on.

The way we state a problem drives how we fix it.

Jet packs or simple pothole repairs? Which is easier?