A dead horse and a pissed off stablemaster

A time when I solved a problem at work all on my own....hmmm......well, there was this one time when the whole building was in flames but I dashed back in saving a woman and her child, a three-legged dog, and a prominent politican.

Ha. As if. No problem at work has ever been so dramatic, nor been so herioc . There are very few problems - work or otherwise - that I have solved all on my own. Life is a group effort. It does not happen in a vacuum. Any small changes to routine or suggestions I've made were always in a communal situation, even if it were only myself and my immediate boss. Nothing - and I truly mean NOTHING - in my life has been a sole and singular event. The housekeeping jobs I've done problem solving for would not have worked had I not a team of other housekeepers. The retail jobs I've done problem solving for would not have worked if I were the only person to show up for a shift.

Even in my personal life, nothing has come out of my own small will. Positive changes have usually been at the behest of therapists. Processing is a group effort. Either I write publicly seeking support or I write personally so my thoughts will be ordered enough to communicate clearly to others.

This isn't to minimize my efforts. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. (Well, you can shove its head INTO the water, but then all you'll have is a dead horse and a really pissed off stable master.) Were it not for me taking up on those suggestions, I would be a mess. A neurotic mess living at barely animal sustained levels. While I'm still living at animal levels, I have enough practice to be less neurotic.

The process is trial and error - and more error than not. But without others to flail about with, there would be no process at all.

I've never solved anything by myself. I don't need to. It's not HEALTHY to. To live in this world, to be healthy and part of a functional society, functional family, and functional set of friends, you have to be willing to work with others. You have to be willing to show up, to listen, to implement what they say. (You also have to be willing to filter out the good suggestions vs the bad ones. But that, too, only comes with practice and listening to others tell you HOW to do just that.)

Unfortunately, this is not the answer that potential employers are looking for when they ask "Describe a time when you solved a problem by yourself." So, to avoid the embarrasement of getting metaphysical about a job that requires no more thought than running a cash register, I usually say "Well, there was this one time when the whole building was in flames..."

(Ha. Still kidding. I tell them some boring story about changing up how we cleaned rooms. It's not a lie. It's just really boring.)