"If you find a good solution and become attached to it, the solution may become your next problem"
About this Quote
The line lands like a friendly warning wrapped in a systems thinker’s punchline: the thing that rescued you can quietly start running your life. As an educator, Robert Anthony is speaking from the messy middle of learning, where “right answers” are often just temporary scaffolding. The intent isn’t to bash solutions; it’s to loosen our grip on them before they harden into dogma.
The subtext is psychological. Humans don’t just solve problems, we build identities around the tools that worked: the study method that finally raised grades, the management framework that fixed a team, the diet that delivered quick results. Attachment turns a tactic into a creed, and creeds don’t like new evidence. What begins as competence becomes rigidity; what begins as clarity becomes blind spot. That’s why the solution becomes the “next problem”: it starts demanding loyalty instead of delivering results, and any change feels like betrayal rather than adaptation.
It also carries a quiet critique of institutional life. In schools and organizations, successful interventions get standardized, then defended, then measured into meaninglessness. People protect the program because it once worked, because it’s politically safe, because it validates the people who championed it. Anthony’s phrasing is deliberately plain, almost conversational, because the trap is ordinary: success can be as disorienting as failure if it stops you from revising your thinking.
The quote works because it reframes progress as provisional. The real skill isn’t finding an answer; it’s staying flexible enough to outgrow it.
The subtext is psychological. Humans don’t just solve problems, we build identities around the tools that worked: the study method that finally raised grades, the management framework that fixed a team, the diet that delivered quick results. Attachment turns a tactic into a creed, and creeds don’t like new evidence. What begins as competence becomes rigidity; what begins as clarity becomes blind spot. That’s why the solution becomes the “next problem”: it starts demanding loyalty instead of delivering results, and any change feels like betrayal rather than adaptation.
It also carries a quiet critique of institutional life. In schools and organizations, successful interventions get standardized, then defended, then measured into meaninglessness. People protect the program because it once worked, because it’s politically safe, because it validates the people who championed it. Anthony’s phrasing is deliberately plain, almost conversational, because the trap is ordinary: success can be as disorienting as failure if it stops you from revising your thinking.
The quote works because it reframes progress as provisional. The real skill isn’t finding an answer; it’s staying flexible enough to outgrow it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Letting Go |
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