Poison

Yesterday, I told you the secret to getting rid of an ant problem - patience and poison. And this is, in fact, the answer to getting rid of some of our other problems, too. Some of the things that just drive us crazy and keep us up at night. 

I'm not saying that this approach always works, but what we know is that the aggressive, immediate response kind of approach doesn't always work, either, so here's an alternative. 

Here's what makes this generally effective, though: 

Ants are dumb. 

They are. The other morning, I woke up to ants crawling all over my bathroom sink and, having done this a time or two in the past few years, I immediately just got a little ant poison and set it out in the middle of the countertop with nothing else around it at all. 

Know what the ants did? They rushed for it. Every single ant on the sink turned around and made a beeline for the poison, then started carrying it happily up the wall and back to their anthill to share with all their ant friends, probably bragging along the way. You guys, I found a great big pile of food just sitting there! 

Before I knew it, there were hundreds of ants helping themselves to the poison. 

This is also great news for those of us trying to solve our other problems with the poison-the-anthill method. Because you know what? 

Problems are dumb. 

Problems will jump at anything that looks like a solution. Problems will jump at anything that looks like an opportunity. Problems will jump at any opportunity to feed themselves. So when you set something out in your life to try to address a problem, your problem will be like You guys! and make a beeline to help itself. 

Ah, yes, the problems that try to help themselves. Haven't they figured out by now that never works? 

If they do figure it out, it will be too late. The trap you've set, the poison you've introduced, the patience you've demonstrated will all be worth it because your problem will take what looks like the easy answer back to its core and destroy itself. 

Sometimes, it's the small, little, patient, faithful steps that you take that will eventually destroy your problems, not the full-frontal assault that we often try first. Sometimes, it's just doing things consistently and making the opportunities available that will take the trouble right out of a situation. And problems, always looking for an easy answer, are far too willing to just take what you lay right out there. Right in the middle of nowhere. Like they just hit the jackpot. 

You guys!

...I'm dying.