Problems are inevitable.

I say this first because people hear it as bad news, and it is the best news there is. A world without problems would be a world where nothing more could be understood, and that world would be finished, and so would we.

Problems are solvable.

Not all at once, and not by anybody in particular, and not by waiting. But there is no problem whose solution is forbidden by the nature of things. If it can be done without breaking a law of physics, the only thing standing between us and it is knowing how.

The solutions to problems lead to more problems.

This is the part people think is a complaint. It is the whole engine. Every answer is a stair, and every stair shows you more stairs. A good solution does not end the conversation. It improves the questions. You will never be done, and that is the point of being here.

Notice which word is missing. None of the three sentences says mistake. I left it out on purpose, and I said so to a room of doctoral students not long ago: the word mistake is not part of my vocabulary.

Someone close to me says she is so scared to make a mistake, to say the wrong thing. I tell her there is no such thing. I will use the word, because it is the word other people use. But a mistake is only a problem that has been asked to stand still. Problems are in motion.

So: have problems. Have better ones next year.

A REPLY, FROM THE SNICKERING PEACH: Rolling in is inevitable, which befalls snickering, leading to staying.

Koala Deutsch declined to respond, and fluffed.