I like to fix things. From faulty appliances to emotional crises, my first instinct is to approach difficult situations as problems to be solved. For washing machines and toaster ovens, this is a reasonable tactic. When the problems get wicked, however, conclusions become harder to jump to. In complex problems as in emotional care, time has taught me that approaching these challenges from a solutions-oriented standpoint often leads me to overlook important perspectives on the problem itself.
Imagine, then, the emotional state I had to put myself into to approach my thesis. Not only did I present myself with a problem that has no easy solution, I created such a multi-layered framework for analysis that it was often difficult to define the the problem itself. Although this was frequently frustrating, it did force me to step back and focus on the finer details of the landscape of issues I was creating, rather than attempt to solve them.
This has proven to be emblematic of the approach which I now take to many of the problems I encounter in my academic life—rather than focus on immediately solving the problem, I focus on describing the landscape of challenges that the problem creates, and what perspectives can be taken on those challenges. Does this mean I end up proposing fewer actual solutions to problems? Absolutely. When I do manage to create a proposed approach out of the convoluted landscapes I encounter, however, it can be extremely satisfying.
So I think you’re spot on, Marlene, when you say that challenges aren’t necessarily appropriate to approach with a single course of action. I think it’s also apt to observe that this doesn’t mean anything goes—on the contrary, this nuanced approach to problem-examining means that any proposed solution to a problem will fall under much greater scrutiny, and have to be evaluated on many more metrics. But it also means that the resulting approaches will be better prepared to meet the real challenges they are designed to encounter.