I had a difficult problem
I didn’t know what to do.
I mulled it round my head.
I puzzled it on the loo.
It coiled round my ears.
It burrowed into my brain
It stuck between my teeth.
It made my feel insane.
I cogitated, deliberated.
I chewed it like a goat
I inhaled it deeply
I gargled it in my throat.
I categorised and vetted it.
I organised it into groups.
But like a circus animal
It had me jumping through hoops.
I stewed and I considered it.
Then let it drift for a while
I put it on the backburner
On the bottom of the pile.
But just a few days later
The problem came again
It was bigger than before
And like a crowd of angry men.
I hadn’t taken it seriously
I’d forgotten the “Lazarus Rule”
It’s a rule for sorting problems.
At work or home or school.
Leave a problem at your peril.
At most leave forty winks.
But if you leave it for four days
It really, really stinks.
So I told it to some people
As if that would make amends.
But that just made it worse:
They gossiped to their friends.
But problems can always worsen.
And I hadn’t finished yet.
I wrote it on my blog
And put it on the internet.
Then the problem overtook me.
It swerved into my lane.
And slammed on its breaks.
And turned into pure pain.
—
Pain is only temporary.
It often goes away.
And just like old Lazarus
I lived another day.
It’s good to learn from problems
And the challenges they set
To turn it into hope
And to deal with regret.
To shrug off unkindness,
Callousness and curses
To look to each morning
And their new mercies.
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