Much of today’s anxiety comes from the belief that there is a right answer to be found for every question.

‘The Last Judgment’ by Hans Memling
Wikimedia Commons

You hear it on all sides: people asking themselves, again and again, “What do I do now?” The question isn’t the problem; it’s the feeling that, somewhere, there has to be a single, right answer — and that you ought to know what it is.

There have been many articles pointing out the down-sides of perfectionism: from a pervasive sense of low self-worth, because you didn’t manage a perfect job, to repeated nagging of others to produce the perfect piece of work you have in your mind. Yet perfectionism isn’t, I believe, the major difficulty people face. Most of us can easily accept that we aren’t perfect, and never will be.

Belief in one right answer

What eats away at the back of the mind is the belief that there’s a right answer to every difficulty and we ought to know what it is.

Management’s cry of, “Don’t bring me problems, bring me answers” is the most obvious version of this insidious belief; a statement superficial to the point of silliness — and totally self-indulgent.

We would all like others to bring us nothing but answers to our difficulties. Of course we don’t want to hear about problems we haven’t yet found for ourselves. But the world isn’t like that, for all our bluster. The truth is simple: many problems don’t have answers — or, if they do, no one knows what they are.

Sometimes, it seems, any answer will do

Mankind has always tried to make more sense of the world than it actually presents. From myths to folk-beliefs, history is full of attempts to find simple answers to what worries or frightens us.

Storms can be both terrifying and dangerous; it must be angry gods throwing their weight about, so pray or offer sacrifices to them. Some people are luckier than others; they must have someone, or something, helping them, like a god or guardian angel. The innocent suffer sickness or disaster; there must be a reason in their past to make sense of the “punishment” they are suffering — they are paying for the sins of their ancestors or former lives.

Science itself is not free from this way of thinking. One of the strongest motivations behind much research is the belief that there must be a logical reason for everything we observe. Given enough time and effort, we will surely find what it may be.

People and ambiguity

People hate ambiguity and fear uncertainty. They long for clear, comprehensible answers; not more unintelligible questions and random observations. They pay lip-service to the idea that many things in this world happen randomly, but don’t want to believe it, so they try to find reasons for everything. And, since most prefer simplicity to complexity, they look for easy answers, however complex the question.

Want to prosper in this life? Just believe it strongly enough and it will happen. That’s “the secret” being sold on various web sites. Want to be the kind of leader who gets results? The answer’s simple: just demand them from your subordinates. Hell, it beats thinking and maybe accepting that neither you, nor anyone else, can produce what you are seeking.

Doing the best you can

In many ways, there is a simple answer to just about every problem: you do the best you can with what you have.

I’m not suggesting you don’t try to find an answer, if one exists, or seek new ways of doing things. If you’re a scientist — or have a bent that way — doing the best you can may mean precisely that.

What I am suggesting is that the belief that there must be an answer, and we ought to know what it is, is a false belief. There may be no answer. There’s certainly no guilt in not knowing what it is, especially if no one else knows either.

Go easy on yourself — and everyone else too

Once you accept that doing the best you can is all that is required, you are freed from most of the guilt and anxiety that goes with expecting a “right answer” to be available. You are no longer tempted into the self-righteousness some show as they try to force their chosen answer on everyone else. It’s hard to be a bully, a martinet, or an over-demanding boss, if you accept that people cannot rationally be expected to do more than one thing — to keep trying to do their best in the circumstances.

Best of all, realizing this prevents you from turning into the kind of insensitive, endlessly-demanding, thoughtless bastard that seems to be the role model for all too many leaders today. If all you do is ask people to do the best they can, you can stand alongside them, helping and encouraging, instead of setting yourself above them to pass judgment on their failings, while you yell for more answers.

So go easy on yourself, and everyone else. Do the best you can with what you have and be content with that. In reality, you have no other option, saving giving up — or running around in a froth of yelling and shouting for an answer that isn’t there.

The plain truth is that it’s up to us to handle our world, whether in our workplaces or anywhere else. If you give up the belief that there’s a right answer always there to be found, you can stop wasting energy beating up on yourself or others when you don’t find it.

Who knows? Maybe some of that saved energy will allow you to get closer to the only practical solution there is for the problems that matter most: to go on doing the best you can with whatever you have — and hoping it will be enough.

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