Decades ago I took a once-a-week inservice for 6 weeks on creative problem-solving. I remember little of it, but the one thing that has stuck with me was "Imagine that the problem is ten times worse. Then imagine that it is ten times less. This usually brings clarity." It did then, as I tried to address a personal problem in that way and hit upon the idea of leaning into something rather than trying to ignore it. Worked. Usually, when one asks "What if this were only one-tenth as big a problem? What if my debt were a hundred dollars instead of a thousand? What if I had to work two hours of mandated overtime instead of twenty?" it is clear we would just ignore it: Yes it's unfair, but not worth my time.
Thus it was gratifying to learn from Real Clear Politics that this was a favored strategy of General Eisenhower. (Instapundit CWCID) Whether he applied that as President Eisenhower I don't know, but I do know that the complaint against him was running the country from the golf course - which looks remarkably wise at the moment. Cal Coolidge and the ten boulders coming down the mountain toward you and all that. Ike probably exaggerated and over-intervened in Suez, but underestimated how much political hay would be made in his second midterms from a brief, shallow recession. That is too limited a data set for me to draw conclusions.
I seldom remember the strategy now, because problems are manageable. Yet it would likely do me good to list them and run the exercise.
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