“Don't solve it, resolve it”: The words that lightened my heart

In addition to holding several jobs, I am currently involved in NPO activities and serve as a board member for a rafting sports association, working daily as a member of several teams.
Also, regarding rafting, I was once part of a team for seven years and became world champions, and for the past few years, I have formed a team with different members and decided to aim for the world championship again next year.

Through such experiences, I feel that my own experience as a "team" member has been gradually increasing.
Or rather, when there are problems or issues inside or outside the team, I no longer feel they are as difficult as I used to.
Of course, there are tough times, but I feel it has become easier to move forward because I have come to think thatthere is something I can domore often.

The reason I have come to think this way is the existence of the phrase,“Don't try to solve it, just resolve it.”These are the words.

These are the words ofAkira Nagao, a facilitator who worked alongside me and supported me when I was aiming to be the best in the world.
Whether it was a parable or a true story, it was so long ago that my memory is hazy, but Akira told me this story at the time.

I remember Akira smiling and telling me this as a way of saying, 'This is what it means to resolve something,' but at the time, I frankly thought,“Wait, isn't that wrong?!”It didn't solve the root cause at all. I mean, it was just a stopgap measure...

I felt like I was seriously thinking about how to make things work, but later on, I became very saved by this parable and the phrase 'just resolve it.'

Understanding each other is difficult

When you are on a team, you often hear the phrase“understand each other.”However, understanding each other is difficult, and there are many times when you arrive at the conclusion that you 'cannot understand each other.'

This“understanding each other”also includes the other person's attitude.
In other words, to understand each other, it is necessary not only for me to understand you, but also for you to understand me.
Or rather, if you have the feeling that the other person understands you, I don't think you would ever think, 'We can't understand each other.'
In other words, isn't 'we can't understand each other' largely a feeling that you are not being understood by the other person?

But as you become more serious and earnest, don't you end up affirming yourself and, in turn, denying the other person who doesn't understand you? (I do.)

Thinking about it this way, I wonder if the desire to 'understand each other' is actually my own ego.

In my sense, this way of thinking like 'understanding each other' feels close to 'solving.'If we can't understand each other, it's over,like that.

On the other hand, 'resolving' is a bit different. I feel it can also be replaced by the word 'dealing with.'
It's closer to thinking about how to move forward for the time being.

As an image,it's like touching a tangled string while wondering how to untangle it.It's a feeling of
looking for a place that is looseso that you don't give up by limiting your methods, or pull it by force and make the knot even tighter.Even if you can't untangle it all,
it's okay if you can untangle just enough for now, and if you find another place that can be untangled while you work, you untangle that too.It's like that.

I didn't win because it was a good team, but I was able to think that it was okay because we won

Even now, I feel that I have become more positive about problems and issues even when something happens in the team, but in the past, I often felt serious.
I would get the feeling of entering an endless tunnel, and I would often stop, thinking,I can't go on like this. Should I just quit?(Thinking about it now, I was young. Haha)

But one day, I suddenly remembered Akira's words and episode,“Don't solve it, just resolve it.”And I felt that maybe I could do that.

Since adopting this mindset, I feel that my heart has become much lighter.
And I also experienced being world champions with my team.

I used to think that a world-class team would be more perfect. But the reality was not like that. There might have been some parts that worked in perfect harmony, but in truth, it felt like a patchwork.
We would hit problems or challenges, implement a fix to move forward, hit another one, fix it, and repeat. But by dealing with things that way, we were able to reach the top.

Reaching the top doesn't mean we were perfect at all.
However, I see it as having cleared what was necessary to win in that competition.

Looking back now, I think this idea of "just resolving it" is what allowed the team to avoid getting stuck or giving up, and instead complete the journey to our goal.

I feel that when you approach things with the mindset of "trying to solve them," the difficulty level increases. While the sense of accomplishment when you do solve them might be greater, the risk when you can't is also higher.
And in a team, you almost always face the same problems or challenges more than once. By accumulating experience through resolving them—even if just temporarily—and applying it to the next step, you can move up like a spiral staircase instead of going around in circles.

It wasn't that "we were a good team because we understood each other, and therefore we could perform and win," but rather that we were able to feel meaning and value in the team because we achieved results.
Meaning and value can sometimes come after the fact. Having experienced that, I feel even more strongly the value of "just resolving things and moving forward."

Of course, I don't deny the importance of understanding each other or solving problems.
Or, I don't think it's bad to give up, quit, and move on to something else.
But realizing that there is merit in stacking up temporary fixes makes me feel more at ease when facing problems or challenges in a team.

And I also think that not overthinking things, and having a mindset like "I don't really want to, but if you buy me cake, it's okay," might be the secret to enjoying being on a team.