Solutions

In 1985, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered during riots in London. The police appealed for information but people were frightened of coming forward.

Michael Ashcroft, a businessman, offered to help with the search. He provided reward money and, in January 1988, set up a charity called Crime Stoppers where people could anonymously call in to help the police with either names of suspects or important information that could help to solve a crime.

Recently, Crime Stoppers received its one millionth genuine call.

The importance of Crime Stoppers cannot be underestimated. As a result of Crime Stoppers, 17 criminals are arrested and charged every day and one person is arrested and charged for murder every 5 days.

There are two ways to solve problems. The first is the Western Way and the second is the Eastern Way.

In the Western Way of solving problems, the key is to have as much information as you can.

This can be from your experience, from the experience of others and from theoretical knowledge.

In the Eastern Way of solving problems, the key is to have an empty mind.

By doing this, your decisions and actions are not affected by past mistakes and external influences.

Throughout our lives, we all experience burdens.

Rumi, however, has an interesting way of looking at these burdens: "Burdens are the foundations of ease and bitter things the forerunners of pleasure."

When we are faced with challenges, we often look inside to find new answers to solve our problems.

By doing this, we open ourselves up to new actions, new ideas, new beliefs and, ultimately, a new perspectives.

It is these that will lead to future successes and future happiness.

Maria Merziotis, a 17-year old from Canada despised flu so much that she came up with a way to get rid of it.

Maria, who recently took first prize in the Sanofi-Aventis BioTalenet challenge for this achievement, has achieved this by creating a molecule that would act as an alternate receptor for the virus, ensuring that human cells are protected.

Medical bodies are testing Maria's concept and early indications are that it is very positive.

"One of the marvels of the world is the sight of a soul sitting in prison with the key in its hand!" These words by Rumi are a perfect metaphor for dealing with problems.

Whenever we have a problem, we should imagine ourselves in this prison sitting there with the key in our hand. We must realise that this key is actually our ability to think, to ask questions and to look at others who have also had similar problems and resolved them.

As soon as we realise that we are holding this key, our thoughts and perspectives change. In stead of focussing on the prison that we are in (with the stress, the worry and the anxiety that accompany it), we will immediately focus on the fact that we have the solution available, right in the palm of our hand.

Life is a melee of emotions and problems.

The secret to effectively handling each problem is to react with the right emotion and to the right intensity.

Abraham Maslow once said: "To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail."

It is estimated that there are over 1,000 emotions that we can experience.

However, most of us only feel a handful of these on a habitual basis.

There are essentially two ways to approach a problem.

The first way is one that is established in the West. This method is simply this; If you have a problem then you must use all of your experience and knowledge in solving it.

The second way is the Eastern way, which tells us that if we have a problem we must clear our mind and approach it afresh.

In truth, we need a combination of these two methods. If we use only the first method, we will repeat our mistakes. If we use only the second method, we will not reproduce our successes.

Most questions have simple answers. Most problems have simple solutions.

Throughout our lives, we are taught and reminded the exact opposite of this!

We are led to believe that all social issues require a lawyer, all medical issues require a doctor, all emotional issues require a therapist and all religious issues require a priest.

We are becoming more and more dependent on the expertise knowledge of others.

As a result of this, we continually dismiss our own ideas and common sense more frequently.