Hey Buddy, You Got a Challenge?

I have to admit it. I have problems. We all do. Wish I could say it wasn’t true but we’re all in the same boat as far as that is concerned. And one of the only things I am absolutely certain of is that I don’t need any more.

That’s why I’ve always resented the idiom of presenting technical tasks as “problems” to be solved. Now this is going to end up sounding like a lot of blue sky thinking and if your eyes are already creeping upward and back into your skull, just give me a minute for some clearer definition.

Problems in the context that I am referring to are absolute limitations, situations that must be resolved in order for any future constructive action to take place. No car to get yourself to work, that’s a real human problem. Not the kind of car you LIKE, not a problem. That latter one, that’s a challenge. A challenge to figure out a way to improve a situation, not just make it viable.

So, with that said let me get back to the challenge of stating technical tasks to be achieved as something other than problems.

Like most of the US population I grew up dreading being forced to bend my intellect toward the remote drudgery of mathematics. One of the honest to goodness reasons for this in retrospect were the ways in which the materials were presented. They were all problems. Math problems were something I didn’t want to deal with, they were the tapping foot of an unfinished chore, glaring and impatient. They needed to be solved, you had no choice.

Challenges, instead, were FUN. Friends challenged me to beat them at video games, to jump off roofs, to arm wrestle and put firecrackers in things but also to beat them at Connect 4, to create a better Halloween costume and learn to play a musical instrument.

No, none of them ever challenged me to solve an equation, but looking back now I wished they had. I wish we knew that we could do that. But the big linguistic take away from all this is: Your enemies give you problems, and your friends give you challenges.

So, in this blog, when I’m presenting technical tasks that I have been asked to perform I will never be referring to them as problems, but challenges.

Just wanted to get that out of the way. So, on to the next challenge.