DREIESKIVA​|Roald Kvam

Well then—congratulations, you’re human. Life happens. And let’s be honest: life’s tougher turns are rarely well signposted. We all end up in the ditch now and then. So having a problem? That doesn’t make you particularly special—not in a bad way, or even a good way. It just means you’re one of us: a human being on a planet where 2 + 2 doesn’t always equal 4.

So yes, you’ve got a problem. Okay. Now what?

Problems come and go. Sure, sometimes we practically invite them in ourselves. But however your particular issue showed up at your door—the question now is: what are you going to do about it? You’ve landed in the ditch—fair enough. But what’s your first and second step out of it? And forward, into the rest of your life?

I’ve met many people wrestling with problems. Some of them deep and painful—life-altering, even. And I’ve heard just as many opinions about how to solve them. Some solutions are truly helpful—genuine lifelines. One in particular has stuck with me. It helps me decide whether to add “ditch-digger” to my CV… or to be remembered as someone who faces life’s lows, learns something worthwhile from each of them, and carries that stubborn little hope in their pocket—the kind that refuses to let life stay parked for too long.

Yes, life hits us.
But listen: if you want to get out of a problem, you have to frame it.
And you do that by turning your problem into a challenge—by the way you talk about it.

Let’s visit—or better yet, drop into—some of the classic ditches:

• “I’m having a bad day.”
• “I’m not getting the support I need.”
• “I don’t know where to start.”

Sound familiar? We’ve all been there.

Now let’s reframe those problems into challenges:

• “How can I have a better day?”
• “How can I get more of the support I need?”
• “What’s the simplest thing I can do—right now—to get started?”

The situation hasn’t changed. But the perspective has. And with a new perspective, your field of vision expands. New options come into focus. Attention shifts, and with it, so does your ability to act.

And here’s the best part:
Instead of declaring defeat or dumping emotional garbage into your own life, you’ve activated the most powerful tool you own—your brain. Now it’s looking for solutions instead of filing away a bad verdict.

If you notice that you’re going in circles around the same question, try changing the question words. One tip? Steer clear of “why” questions. They tend to pull you backward—into the origin story of the problem—or worse, into self-blame:
Why am I here? Why do I deserve this? Why does this always happen to me?

Stop right there. You don’t need that narrative.

You have the same right as anyone else to live your one, wild, real life—fully and freely. None of us were designed to live in the ditch. Sure, you can learn a lot from the days you’ve been down there (I’m all for that). But you can’t live in the past.

Come back to your present—with your eyes set on your tomorrows.