When Life Isn't Complicated - It's Complex

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.”

—Alan Watts

What if the reason you feel stuck isn’t because you haven’t found the answer, but because you’re trying to solve something that isn’t meant to be solved?

Recently, on a podcast, I heard Arthur Brooks, a behavioral scientist at Harvard, talk about the difference between “complicated” and “complex.” I loved his explanation, not because the ideas were new, but because the language, and his descriptions of each word, were so precise. Words matter. They can shift your perspective and, in so doing, bring new solutions to light.

Complicated is designing a jet engine, building a car, or assembling something from Ikea. It’s anything you’ve never done before, but once you figure it out, you can repeat it. Complicated things are challenging, but they have an answer. An end point. A resolution.

Complex is something entirely different. We may find answers for the complicated, but we are shaped by the complex.

Complex is your relationship with your children. Your spouse. Your work. Yourself. No matter how many ways you try to “figure it out,” the problem refuses to stay still long enough to be solved. You may gain insight, you may grow, you may shift. But there is no final answer. No clean resolution.

Complex things are not problems to solve. They are relationships to live. And yet…we keep trying to solve them.

We are constantly offered complicated solutions to complex problems. Dating is complex. But there’s an algorithm in an app somewhere that promises to help. It may introduce you to someone, but it cannot navigate the relationship for you. Stressed out? Lonely? Want to lose weight? There’s an app for that too. SO many complicated algorithms designed to solve life problems, but none of them solve the complexity of being human.

And still, we look. Especially in a society where we are sold instant gratification and where we are always looking for the easy way out.

We look for the answer. The system. The expert. The plan that will finally make everything make sense. We live in a “scientific” reductionist society that is always looking for answers. Not because the answers are there, but because we’ve been conditioned to believe they should be. Complicated things feel safe. They offer us some idea of certainty, control, completion.

Complex things offer none of that. They ask for something far more uncomfortable. And our brains don’t like uncomfortable. Complex things require presence, patience, self-trust. The truth is, we don’t just confuse complicated and complex. We try to turn everything into something solvable. We take something alive and reduce it to a checklist.

The first time you build a puzzle, it’s complicated. You don’t know where the pieces go, but there is a right answer. A finished picture you’re working toward. But your relationship with your child? It looks like a puzzle, until you realize the picture keeps changing while you’re trying to assemble it. There is no final image. No moment where you can step back and say, “Done.” Only a series of moments asking something new of you.

And this is where the shift happens.

Instead of asking, “What’s the answer?” we need to ask, “What is being asked of me right now?” Because complex problems don’t have answers. They have invitations. An invitation to show up differently. To listen more closely. To respond, rather than react. To take the next right step. Not the final one.

And maybe that’s where we get stuck.

We think the next right step is too small. Too insignificant. Too…ordinary. But in complex systems, ones that require relationships, healing, growth, there is no leap to the finish line. Only baby steps. And each one matters.

Maybe the problem isn’t that we haven’t found the answer. Maybe the problem is that we keep asking the wrong kind of question. Not everything in your life is meant to be figured out. Some things are meant to be felt. Some are meant to be experienced. Some are meant to be lived. One step at a time. That’s not a failure of understanding. Of not finding the right answer. Maybe that’s what it means to be fully human.

Next time you are faced with a problem, ask yourself if it is complicated; will there be a known outcome (the bookcase from Ikea will look like a bookcase). Or is it something more complex that will remain a moving target. I’m guessing that if you don’t know the answer, it falls under complex. Instead of demanding or working toward “an answer” ask yourself what the "problem" is inviting you to learn. About yourself, about the people you love, about what your next right step should be.

Sit with it a bit. If it isn’t something that needs an answer, you have time.

Much Love,

Lisa

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Lisa Hamil is a founding member and host for The SOS Collective, an online international women’s recovery and support group. However, this blog and any classes or coaching offered by Lisa Hamil LLC are separate from and not affiliated in any way with The SOS Collective.