The 5 Stages of Crossing the River of Live
| Original thoughts of problem solving method from Demiro Ragil Syah
The Ancient One once said,
“You can not beat a river into submission. You have to surrender to its current and use its power as your own”
Hearing this on the fourth time watching Doctor Strange (2016) gave me goosebumps. Realizing the fact that I have been enjoying the challenges that came to my life over the past few years just made those statements even more relatable. I might be trying to prevent potential conflicts and challenges that are coming to my life, but when it officially comes to me, I immediately convince myself, “this is it, another one.”
I found myself very uniques as I might not be too redundant with a problem in my life, but more like embracing it to its flow. Or maybe, it was not the big one yet? Well, I don’t know.
Here are the things, when people try to address their problem to you, they might put themselves as the main character or the purest character in the story. That is a basic human nature to defend themselves and think that they are not wrong, or just to seek validation. Knowing the fact that I am also human and might have this tendency, I choose to practice the things I believe are relatively working as solving your problem that is quite disheveled.
I have five constructive ways of doing that.
- Feel the current
The purpose of giving yourself up to the current is not to fight the submission is to give you the exact feeling and reality about what you are facing. In this stage, try to think alternates of for the future you might have when dealing with the problem. It helps you to understand that you can’t always be the protagonist, but you might also face the alternate where you are the antagonist, and that will make you understand the wisest decision not of all time but at the current time.
2. Stop by the coast for a moment.
Remember that you might need to take a rest, and it does not mean you are giving up on finding the end of the problem. It is actually to enrich yourself with the things you might not know yet. At this point, asking someone’s opinion, which might be your support system, your mentor, or anyone in your surroundings, might helps you to understand more. But remember, this is a stage where you should be as objective as you can to the line of the story. I consider someone who asks my opinion about their problem; might become biased because they want to win in the end. This is the stage where you can understand many alternate futures from others’ points of view, not exactly comforting you by asking for validation for the things you insist that it is right for you to have.
3. Use anything that can help you with the flow.
This is the final stage where you might be questioning, “after that coast, that intersection, that ups, and downs, is it really going to an end?”. Anything that you find during the journey might help you; you can’t actually choose wisely if you only think about the end. But, think about what you will face during the current when taking that helps (what is important is: enjoying the current).
4. The oasis: the end of the river
After all, you have come this far and finally almost come to the end of the problem. First, don’t be too harsh and fast as you might forget what you have been through during the process and only value the achievements. Then, be patient as you are not actually fighting against the submission but following the current flow. Remember all of the resources you have gathered to solve the problem, and you have to know that it is not going to be the right one, but it will be the coolest.
5. Get up to the mainland and look again.
This is the important part, and you won’t get the fullest satisfaction only by knowing that you succeed in solving the problem or to get the best decision. But, you have to ensure that you can get many lessons by looking at your past and what you have been through to get into the end.
The best end of the story is not a sad or happy ending, but ending with lessons.
You might unconsciously think that “oh, I have been like this for a long time,” and yes, you are right because things that I write are actually the things that I learned from life, not the things I planned from the beginning (well, maybe some of it). The point is that when you are facing a problem, try to be sensitive to what’s going on around you. In the end, you surely will learn something.
