We are wired to solve problems. It doesn’t matter how big or small the problem is. Once we recognise a problem exists, we usually do something about it. We buy a band-aid for our blister. We take night classes to train up for a better job. We get counselled for our relationship problems. We leave angry comments on YouTube.

We really value problem solvers. If you’re clever at solving hard problems, companies will give you lots of money. We vote for politicians we believe can solve our problems.

Survival is the problem we need to keep solving. And through a certain lens, our lives are a series of responses to different shaped and sized problems.

That’s why it’s a little unsettling when someone faces a problem and says they can’t solve it.

What do you mean you can’t? That’s not what we like to hear. We’d rather hear about solutions, options and ideas for making something better. We don’t want to hear about giving up.

But sometimes that’s all we can do.

This is the crisis Nora (Renate Reinsve) finds herself in the film Sentimental Value. She’s struggling with a suffocating depression and cries out to no one in particular: “Help me. I can’t do this anymore, I can’t do it alone.”

After years of ignoring advice from doctors, friends and the latest scientific research, people often say they started to lose weight in earnest when they couldn’t see their toes anymore or weren’t able to pick up their grandchildren.

Alcoholics say something similar when they start Alcoholics Anonymous. They introduce themselves to strangers as an alcoholic who is powerless over their problem with alcohol.

Admitting to a huge problem that you don’t know how to solve isn’t fun. That’s why almost no one does it. Instead, we keep looking for a place to hide, like we’re in the desert looking for shelter from the sun. We believe we are capable of doing anything. We rely on excuses, clever logic, stories and other fabrications that sound like problem solving and progress.

But when we admit we can’t do something, or that we really don’t know how to proceed with our lives, at least we’re being honest. In that moment, we are seeing our life, in whatever shape it is in, clearly and truthfully.

If we really can’t do it, we can’t do it. And that might suck.

But that’s a pretty good place to start.

Also published on Substack