Victor Jones explains why the “quick fix” is neither beneficial nor satisfying in a journey of growth.
Few things in life are more appealing than the prospect of an easy answer.
Over the years, I’ve spent countless hours or even days struggling to solve problems I thought should have taken mere minutes. In each case, I was convinced I was missing some obvious solution that would make the whole thing go away instantly if I just opened my mind and saw the light.
For instance, there was the time I decided to replace the air conditioner vents in my parent’s house because they were covered in stains from decades of condensation and dust. There were only two screws holding everything in place, located on opposite ends of the vent. What could be easier? Line ‘em up, twist ‘em down. Except that the holes in the new vents were half an inch off from the holes in the ceiling.
And then there were all those nights I spent in the computer lab when I was a software engineering major in college. I was sure I had the algorithm to sort this list or calculate that equation figured out on the first try. Unfortunately, it never worked on the first try or the second or even the tenth for that matter.
You can only traffic in false hope for so long. Eventually, I had to embrace the process and get down to solving the problem in ways beyond the obvious avenues I had been taking. That meant scavenging up a ruler to measure the gap between the old holes and the new ones in the AC vents and finding a drill bit that could punch holes in metal. It also meant fundamentally rethinking how I was approaching my source code by boning up on new functions in the programming language I was using at the time. There wasn’t going to be a shortcut coming to save the day.
That notion of grinding out a solution by hard work and stretching yourself runs counter to the current zeitgeist of instant gratification. We live in the era of the quick fix.
Key points include:
- Pills and apps
- Only Fans and Ozempic
- Cliff Notes and For Dummies
Read the article, The Quick Fix Is In, on Substack.