not everything needs to be fixed
- Lana S. Price
- Aug 14
- 5 min read
lana price, window, 2025, polaroid 600, 4.25" x 3.5"
I pride myself on being a natural problem-solver, and it comes in pretty handy. My primary income comes from being a management consultant/ advisor, so I get paid to surface problems and find answers. I’d say in the working world, that’s the norm: we’re here to solve problems for the customer/ client/ patient/ boss.
Problem-solving is also a key life skill, right? When something disrupts our lives, it’s a problem to be solved; either to return to what was, or to get through to what’s next. Our brains are obsessed with problems, because its job is to keep us safe.
This is what pragmatism is all about: it’s a philosophy built on the idea that thinking exists to solve problems. And an idea is only as good as its ability to work when tested against real life.
I call this problem-solving approach “fixer” energy. But some things don’t need to be solved, they need to be witnessed. Learning the difference, and learning to let go of fixing when it's not what's needed, is easier said than done.
what fixer energy looks like
A few years ago I took comprehensive bereavement training with Dr. Alan Wolfelt, who is an expert death educator and grief counselor. A core tenet of Wolfelt’s approach is that grief is not something to be fixed, controlled, managed, or resolved; instead his approach is to “companion” the griever, by being totally present to them.
There’s something that happens when, let’s say a friend, shares with you that someone they care about has died. It can incite an internal panic, like:
Oh no, death! The thing I don’t want to think about!
My friend is sad! I don’t want them to feel that way!
Now I am also feeling sad! And I don’t want to feel this way, either!
And from this place of panic, we turn to fixing. Though well-meaning, fixing is by design a suppression of these feelings and the other person’s experience. In this grieving context, fixing can look like:
Rushing to platitudes (e.g., “they’re in a better place,” “time heals all wounds”)
Asking probing questions that satisfy your curiosity but don’t serve the griever (e.g., “how old were they?” “how did it happen?”)
Turning the conversation towards yourself (“I know exactly how you feel. When my grandparent died…”)
Each of these, however kind the intention, actually asks the griever to manage something for us: our discomfort, our curiosity, our need for the conversation to feel resolved.
The alternative is to companion. Wolfelt uses this term, which is lovely, in a therapeutic capacity, so I’m going to modify it slightly for a broader context and call it “witnessing.”
how to witness
If we go back to the previous example, witnessing can take two forms: the internal and the external.
In the internal: we notice the panic. And we choose to hold it. To stay in the discomfort for a beat. To not reach for the proverbial fixer hammer.
We can then witness the other. A witnessing response could be:
Naming something about the person who died (“I’m sorry. I remember when I first met them…”)
Naming something about your friend (“I’m sorry. I know how much they meant to you.”)
Naming the feeling itself (“I’m sorry. What an incredible loss.”)
Witnessing is non-judgmental acknowledgment. Here we are addressing the pain, not through fixing, but by naming it and validating its existence. It’s both simple yet hard, because witnessing is intentionally open-ended. We don’t really know where this conversation will go from here. There’s space. Whereas fixing exerts control.
It might seem counterintuitive to address the pain, because isn’t pain the thing we are all trying to avoid? But avoidance doesn’t make pain disappear. It pushes it underground where it can get stuck, and resurface later as anxiety, depression, or physical illness. Addressing it, on the other hand, is what lets it move.
Wolfelt teaches that feelings have one ambition in life: to be felt. And emotions want motion. When we deny, inhibit, or defend against emotions, pain lasts longer.
I’m using grief here as an example where witnessing is more powerful than fixing. But it can be applied anywhere where the need to be seen can be just as, if not more, important than the need for the problem to be solved.
why we fix
I’m not trying to say fixer energy is “bad.” Sometimes the job at hand is to give advice. It’s offering a solution the other person simply can’t see. It’s jumping in and rolling up our sleeves, and that can be a gift.
But just know that it isn’t totally selfless. Fixing feels good for the fixer. It puts us in a position where we are the smart ones with the answers. We can swoop in as the heroes or heroines of the story.
Years ago I had a friend who was struggling with her fertility journey, and she asked me what she should do. I didn’t have relevant personal experience, but I knew a friend-of-a-friend who went through something very similar, so I got their number and passed it along. My friend never called.
It occurred to me later that perhaps my friend wasn’t asking for answers, but to be witnessed. To be recognized for what she was moving through. Perhaps she didn’t need me to “do” anything except say out loud, “I see your dream to be a mom, and the price you’re paying. I see the constant stress, physical hardships, and rounds of heartbreak. I see you, and I’m here for you.”
why we witness
Life isn’t just a series of problems to be solved. And when we approach things that way, it gets real old real fast.
We also desperately need to have meaning in our lives. We need to know that we matter and that what we’re doing matters.
In this essay called “The Unseen,” sociologist Dr. Allison Pugh argues:
“What they might call ‘loneliness’ is actually a different sort of crisis, one of depersonalisation. Depersonalisation is what happens when people feel not exactly lonely, but rather profoundly invisible. What is missing here is what scholars call ‘recognition’, ‘mattering’ or ‘being seen’ – the notion that you are seen and heard, even emotionally understood, by the people around you, as opposed to feeling insignificant or invisible to others.”
Emotional recognition isn’t just for difficult times. We can also witness each other in progress. We can witness by celebrating wins, big or small: “You’ve been working really hard. This accomplishment is well-deserved.”
Witnessing comes from our attention. It is a form of care. We witness in service of mattering.
pragmagical is about holding the tension
There’s a time to fix, but there’s also a time to witness. Or we can oscillate between the two (caregiving might be an example).
Witnessing isn't the abandonment of pragmatism, it's pragmatism applied to a different kind of problem: not what’s broken, but what needs to be seen, what needs to be acknowledged.
For better or worse, we now have incredible fixing-machines in our pockets; devices that answer any question on any topic. Advice is cheap and plentiful! But what is rarer, and more valuable, is reminding each other that we matter.
When tempted to jump straight into fixing, we can remember witnessing. First to witness ourselves and the experience we’re having. Then to witness the other, to honor where they are and where they’ve been. And take it from there.
Reply and let me know: Does this resonate with you? Is there a place in your life where you are trying to fix something that is asking to be witnessed?
i'm lana price and this is my biweekly-ish newsletter. i write about navigating life transitions, bridging practicality and possibility. you can find other writing here. subscribe to get these straight to your inbox.
