The 84th Problem: Beyond the Pursuit of Problem-Free Living

The familiar ping of the calendar reminder preceded what would no doubt be an exciting conversation. A new discovery call. These are a highlight for me, as I love to meet people where they are — and I love learning where they’re trying to get to even more.

Today's meeting was with Gio, an introduction from a previous client in Rome. Gio was, no doubt, on my calendar for the same reason most find themselves there: seeking salvation. Not in the religious sense, but the peace-seeking sort.

"Tell me about yourself," I opened the call.

"I am an entrepreneur with a code-writing background,” he said. “I like writing code. But now I just deal with people."

I listened.

"I am married; my wife is amazing, but sometimes she nags me, and that makes me miserable."

I listened.

"I have two boys; they are great, but they never tire, and I never have enough time for them — they exhaust me."

I listened.

"Business is good, but it's not great. Life is good, but it's not great. Family is good, but it's not great."

I listened.

As I let him finish, I could see him anticipating the salvation that was coming, the wise answers I would have to all his problems.

The Unexpected Response

"I’m sorry,” I replied. “I can't help you.”

Flabbergasted, he looked me dead in my soul, and he was furious.

"I am sorry, I was under the impression this is what I was here for,” he retorted. “You were going to help me."

All humans — you and I included — have problems. Eighty-three problems, as the Buddha-Dharma would suggest. But problems nonetheless. In fact, problems in all their expanse might be the most central of human existence. You can work incredibly hard and eliminate one of those problems, but another will quickly arise to take its place.

Now visibly angry, Gio exploded.

"I thought you were supposed to be a great and wise teacher. I'm here because you are supposed to help me — what good is this call then?"

"Perhaps I just did help you. Now you are aware of the 84th problem."

"84th?" he asked.

"Yes,” I explained. “The desire to have no problems at all.”

The Parable's Wisdom

Perhaps you have heard this parable before. It's an adaptation from the Buddha-Dharma, and it's one I see regularly. This is not a conversation about religion or Buddhism, and the details of the story were changed to feel more relevant, hopefully, to you today. The point is the same.

I find myself encountering people for the first time, and most of those times, they are in search of the wrong answers. I, too, have sought them. I, too, have believed that salvation looks like the absence of problems.

So, I am taking this blog as a chance to be perfectly clear: You will never be void of problems, not as long as you are alive — so, the presence of a problem is likely a pretty good sign.

In fact, you will have many natural problems to attend to. Things that arise of your own evolution and growth. But that doesn't mean we need to add artificial problems, like the heavy, unsolvable sort that is the hope of being without a problem.

The Romance of Problem-Free Living

Respectfully, I know that life and business are hard, and like many distractions out there, there is no shortage of actors purporting that life can be absent of struggle, challenge, and strife. However, that simply just isn't true.

We can romanticize the idea of being free of challenge. We can even romanticize the idea of having someone else's challenge. Because surely solving billionaire problems is more fun than worrying about where your next meal comes from, right?

Well, as someone who has worked with people facing the full gamut of those problems, I can tell you one thing: All people face all problems in the same way. All seemingly as dire, no matter the actual stakes.

But here’s the crux of this pursuit.

Chasing the absence of problems is not only a treadmill of impossibility, it's also a distraction from the simplicity of the solution.

You already have everything you need. You just need to wake up.

We love to stay in perpetual pursuit of ideas and answers. To remain in constant action, resolving problems rather than reflecting on the patterns within them.

Awareness is not the ability to find the answer to all your problems. Awareness is the ability to find your presence in all your problems — so you can break the patterns and processes that drive these problems.

Yes, another will pop up, but at least it will be new. And you can step off the treadmill of the masses, repeating problems over and over with new “answers” and no recognition of the root: you.

Beyond Buddhist Platitudes

All right, if you’re still reading — even if your eyes have rolled so hard you’ve detached your retinal nerve — let's talk a little bit about what can help. 

I realize problems are hard, and if the shared human condition is problems, then that also means the shared hope is the resolution of problems. (Which sums up the entire world economy — sell people solutions to problems. Great supply-and-demand situation there.)

The first thing I'll say is no, you don't have to be Buddhist. Although there's nothing wrong with doing so. Buddhism is not really a religion at all; it's simply an awakening. But I'll save that for another time.

The real struggle arises when you go seeking outside solutions to your problems. This can look like answers, it can look like people, false prophets and idols, it can look like systems. And it doesn’t just create a new problem — it creates two. 

First, you will solve a problem by creating a new one. One thing down, another pops up. For example, to solve your problem with a guru's system, you must now learn the system just to solve the problem.

Second, you learn that someone else is your solution. Now, you not only continue to return to them for answers, you also one day get upset with them for not solving the problem at all. Then you go looking for a different person.

The Compounding Effect

Replacing one problem with two problems is a great way to compound your investment in problems.

Solve a problem, replace with a problem, repeat, be thankful you are still alive.

Solve a problem, replace with two problems, get overwhelmed, wish you weren't alive.

Morbid, I know.

The truth is that problems are not actually problems at all — they are merely situations. They are, however, good distractions from presence — and a surefire way to drain your energy if you focus only on eradicating them instead of considering how they fit into the bigger picture of your life.

This might seem strange coming from me. Surely I'd make a lot more money and live a better life if I purported to have the answers to your problems. Why would I not just say that?

Because my goal is to actually solve your real problem.

I am here to improve your life.

To do that, I have to first confront the inconvenient truth: There will always be a challenge.

To best prepare you for that, I have to do one and only one thing.

Get you to believe in yourself as easily as you believe in others.

It's always been you.

The Problem That Followed Me Around the World

I remember distinctly the moment this truth crystallized for me. It wasn't through studying ancient texts or meditating on a mountaintop — it was through my own spectacular failure to escape problems.

Several years ago, I shut down a business venture that had gone sideways. The collapse hit me hard — financially, professionally, emotionally. It almost ruined me. Like so many entrepreneurs facing failure, I blamed everything but myself: the market conditions, difficult clients, unreliable partners—anything external that could absorb responsibility for what had happened.

Rather than face these circumstances head-on, I made what seemed like a brilliant escape plan. I took my business entirely online and decided to become a digital nomad — traveling the world for a year. Eight trips, eight incredible locations, no home base. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

With each new destination came the initial euphoria of escape — the thrill of new surroundings, different cultures, exotic foods. Each location offered temporary relief from the weight I carried. But as the months passed, a disturbing pattern emerged. Despite changing my physical coordinates on the map, the internal coordinates of my problems remained fixed.

It was as if I were meticulously packing my problems into each suitcase alongside my carefully rolled clothes and travel adapters. The scenery changed dramatically — from beaches to mountains to bustling cities — but my relationship with myself remained stubbornly consistent.

The breakthrough came not on some mountaintop or sacred site, but in a nondescript hotel room in what was supposed to be paradise. I woke up one morning with the same knot of anxiety I'd been carrying for months, despite being thousands of miles from where those problems had originated. The realization hit me with crushing clarity: I wasn't on an adventure; I was on the run.

I had changed everything except the one thing that needed changing: my relationship with problems themselves. I had been treating problems as things to escape rather than situations to engage with. I had been operating under the belief that if I just changed the external circumstances enough, the internal discomfort would resolve.

This wasn't just a personal revelation; it was a professional one. How could I possibly help others navigate their challenges when I was literally circumnavigating the globe to avoid my own? The geographical cure had failed spectacularly, not because travel is inherently ineffective, but because I had been using it as an escape rather than as a container for growth.

The Problem-Presence Connection

This realization fundamentally shifted my approach to both my own life and my work with clients. I came to understand that our relationship with problems is perhaps the most significant determinant of our quality of life.

When we orient ourselves around problem-elimination — constantly seeking to arrive at some imagined problem-free state — we create a fundamental disconnect from present experience. We live in a perpetual state of "if only" and "when this is fixed." We move through life with one foot always in an imagined future where things are finally OK.

This orientation creates a peculiar form of suffering that the Buddha recognized 2,500 years ago and that modern psychology confirms: the suffering of resistance to what is. Not the suffering inherent in the challenge itself, but the additional layer of suffering we create through our relationship with the challenge.

I see this pattern repeatedly with clients who come seeking solutions. They arrive convinced that if only this specific problem were solved — the difficult business partner, the cash-flow issue, the marketing challenge, the work-life imbalance — then they would finally experience peace. They're often surprised when I'm less interested in the particular problem they're fixated on and more interested in their overall relationship with problems.

One client, a serial entrepreneur with a remarkable track record of business success but a persistent sense of dissatisfaction, initially resisted this approach. "I'm paying you to help me solve this specific issue with my team," he insisted, "not for philosophical discussions about the nature of problems."

Six sessions later, after we had indeed addressed his team dynamics but found his dissatisfaction unchanged, he had a breakthrough. "I've been playing whack-a-mole with problems my entire career," he realized. "Every time I solve one, I immediately find another to focus on. It's never the problems — it's me."

This insight marked the beginning of a profound transformation — not because his business suddenly became problem-free, but because he developed a fundamentally different relationship with challenges. He learned to see problems not as obstacles to peace but as the very arena in which peace is practiced.

The Problem Practice

What does this alternative relationship with problems look like in practice? How do we maintain presence and agency in the face of genuine challenges without slipping into either passive acceptance or compulsive problem-elimination?

Through working with hundreds of clients navigating everything from minor irritations to existential crises, I've observed several key practices that characterize a healthier, more effective approach:

1. Problem Recognition Without Problem Identity

Those who navigate challenges most effectively maintain a clear distinction between having problems and being problems. They recognize challenges without incorporating them into their identity or self-concept.

Notice the difference between "I have a cash-flow challenge in my business" and "I'm bad with money." Between "My relationship is struggling right now" and "I'm a failure at relationships." Between "This project isn't working as planned" and "I'm not cut out for this work."

This distinction isn't mere semantics — it fundamentally alters your relationship with the challenge and your capacity to address it. When a problem becomes part of your identity, solutions become threats to your self-concept rather than opportunities for growth.

2. Curiosity Before Strategy

When facing a challenge, our instinct is often to immediately pursue solutions — to strategize, plan, and act. While action is ultimately necessary, those who navigate problems most effectively begin with curiosity rather than strategy.

Before asking "How do I fix this?" they ask questions like: What is this problem revealing? What patterns does this challenge reflect? What am I learning about myself, others, or the situation through this difficulty? How is this problem serving me or protecting me in some way?

This curiosity-first approach often reveals that the presenting problem isn't the real problem at all — it's merely a symptom of deeper patterns, beliefs, or situations that, once addressed, transform the original challenge.

3. Presence Within Process

Perhaps the most powerful practice is the ability to remain fully present during the problem-solving process rather than fixating on the imagined state after the problem is solved.

This presence doesn't mean passive acceptance of circumstances that can and should be changed. Rather, it means engaging fully with the reality of the moment — including the challenge — while working toward change.

I've observed that those who navigate problems most effectively don't experience less challenge, but they do experience less suffering around those challenges. They've developed the capacity to engage with difficulties without being consumed by them, to work toward solutions without attaching their well-being to specific outcomes.

The Ultimate Problem-Solver

The most profound transformation I've witnessed — both in my own life and in the lives of clients — isn't the elimination of problems. It's the development of what we might call the "ultimate problem-solver" — not a particular strategy, approach, or technique, but a fundamental shift in identity.

This shift moves us from seeing ourselves as victims of problems to stewards of challenges. From those who need problems to disappear to those who can remain present and effective regardless of circumstances. From those who believe peace requires problem-elimination to those who discover peace within the very process of engaging with life's inevitable difficulties.

This is what I was attempting, however clumsily, to convey to Gio in our initial call. Not that his challenges weren't real or that solutions weren't possible, but that the pursuit of a problem-free existence was itself the primary obstacle to his peace and effectiveness.

The path forward wasn't another strategy, system, or solution to eliminate his challenges. It was a fundamental shift in how he related to challenges altogether — a recognition that problems aren't obstacles to a good life but the very context in which a good life is created.

This shift doesn't happen through intellectual understanding alone. It requires practice, presence, and often, guidance. But unlike the endless pursuit of problem-elimination, it offers something sustainable: not a life without problems, but a life where problems no longer have the power to determine your experience.

In the years since my global wake-up call, I've discovered that the most valuable offering I can make isn't to solve people's problems. It's to help them discover their own capacity to navigate challenges with presence, curiosity, and agency — to help them recognize that they already possess everything they need to face whatever life presents.

Because the truth remains: It's always been you.

Transform Your Relationship with Problems

Are you caught in cycles of problem-solving that never seem to deliver lasting peace? At Paradigm Collective, we help high-achievers transform their relationship with challenges through our "84th Problem" methodology.

Our approach doesn't focus on eliminating your problems — it helps you develop a fundamentally different relationship with them. Through our guided process, you'll learn to distinguish between having problems and being problems, to approach challenges with curiosity before strategy, and to remain present within the problem-solving process rather than fixating on an imagined problem-free future.

Ready to move beyond the pursuit of problem-free living? Schedule a Problem Relationship Assessment where we'll help you identify your specific patterns around challenges and develop a personalized practice for engaging with problems in ways that enhance rather than diminish your experience of life.

Transform Your Relationship with Problems →