Problem and Predicament

Problem and Predicament
The Prose and Poetry of Being Human

In the contemporary world, particularly in spaces like business schools where quantification and pragmatism are deeply valued, the distinction between problem and predicament remains both necessary and neglected. We live in a time that prizes clarity, efficiency, and solutions—yet human life rarely conforms to these expectations. Inspired by a recent inaugural address at XLRI by Fr George Sebastian, this essay revisits a foundational philosophical insight: Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. Drawing on the thought of Gabriel Marcel and Søren Kierkegaard, the essay explores how the distinction between problems and predicaments challenges the dominance of instrumental reason and opens up space for awe, vulnerability, and ethical reflection—particularly for engineers, managers, and business leaders in formation.

Problems: Linear, Technical, and Prosaic

A problem is something that can be analysed, broken down into parts, and resolved. It lies outside the self. As Gabriel Marcel (1950) suggests, a problem “is something that I can consider objectively,” something I can handle without being changed by it. It follows a linear trajectory—defined, bounded, and answerable. Problems belong to the world of prose—structured, clear, and goal-oriented.

This mindset dominates not only engineering and economics but also business education. XLRI, like many top business schools, attracts students with strong technical backgrounds—many of them engineers who are attuned to solving equations, optimising systems, and maximising outputs. For such students, problem-solving is a virtue: identify inefficiencies, eliminate ambiguity, propose actionable frameworks.

Indeed, in the business world, the ability to ‘solve problems’—be they related to supply chain disruption, marketing misalignment, or financial forecasting—is central to managerial success. Packages, placements, and performance metrics matter. This is the prose of business education: necessary, rigorous, and deeply impactful.

Yet, in real life and leadership, not everything is a problem. Much of what truly matters—grief, love, identity, mortality, purpose—resists tidy solutions.

Predicaments: Lived, Subjective, and Poetic

Unlike problems, predicaments are complex, ambiguous, and participatory. They implicate the self. One cannot simply stand outside a predicament and ‘solve’ it. Gabriel Marcel (1960) contrasts problems with what he calls mystery: “A mystery is a situation in which I am myself involved, and therefore one that cannot be reduced to objective terms.”

A predicament is not merely difficult—it is existential. It requires one to dwell, to wait, to wrestle. It belongs to the realm of poetry—fluid, open-ended, and full of affect. Consider the predicament of work-life balance, the ethical dilemma of choosing between short-term profits and long-term sustainability, or the anxiety of not knowing one’s vocation despite a lucrative offer. These are not problems to be solved, but tensions to be lived.

Søren Kierkegaard (1849/1980) describes this existential burden as the “sickness unto death”—a despair that arises when the self is estranged from itself. His concept of angst (Anxiety) captures the weight of human freedom and the terror of choice. In predicaments, one confronts not a lack of data, but a surplus of depth.

Predicaments require not technique, but discernment. Not analysis, but presence. They are not quantitative but qualitative. One cannot optimise one’s way out of loneliness, burnout, or moral failure. As business leaders rise in responsibility, they increasingly face such predicaments—where the issue is not what to do, but who one is becoming.

Mystery and Meaning in Business Education

It is here that the wisdom of Marcel and Kierkegaard becomes crucial for institutions like XLRI, which aim to form not only competent professionals but also reflective human beings. Business education that focuses only on problem-solving risks producing efficient technocrats with impoverished inner lives. If every challenge is treated as a problem, we lose the capacity to live with questions.

Engineers, by training, seek clarity and precision. Their orientation is often toward certainty. They are masters of metrics. But leadership—true leadership—requires comfort with ambiguity. The CEO navigating ethical fallout, the social entrepreneur facing failure, the HR manager negotiating between empathy and performance—these are not engineering problems. They are human predicaments.

As the world becomes more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), this distinction becomes all the more critical. We must train future leaders to not only solve problems but to live predicaments. This means cultivating the virtue of unknowing—the ability to hold space for what is unresolved, to sit with discomfort, and to trust in processes that do not yield immediate outcomes.

It also means rediscovering awe and wonder—capacities largely absent in a pedagogy obsessed with monetisation and measurable impact. To manage complexity, we must first honour it. To act ethically, we must be willing to pause. To lead others, we must know how to be led by our own questions.

The Culture of Quantification and the Risk of Dehumanisation

Contemporary business culture is dominated by metrics: KPIs, OKRs, EBITDA, ROI. While these are essential tools, they can become dangerous idols. The obsession with quantification seduces us into believing that what cannot be measured does not matter. Yet, as the saying goes, “Not everything that counts can be counted.”

When students reduce life to packages and placements, they risk losing the poetry of their own journey. They become driven, but not necessarily fulfilled; skilled, but not necessarily wise. They may solve many problems but remain strangers to themselves.

Moreover, the attempt to frame everything in terms of profit and productivity leads to moral and psychological exhaustion. Burnout, for instance, is not a problem of time management—it is a predicament of meaning. As Byung-Chul Han (2015) argues in The Burnout Society, our neoliberal obsession with optimisation has turned the self into a project—one that is never enough, always lacking, always on display.

Against this backdrop, Marcel’s call to recover the mystery of being becomes revolutionary. He invites us to return to being human—not as a task to be managed, but as a mystery to be lived.

Living the Questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart,” Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote. “Try to love the questions themselves.” This is the spirit we must foster among future leaders.

To live the questions means to admit uncertainty, to recognise one’s vulnerability, to acknowledge that not all solutions are final. It means to listen more, judge less, and reflect deeply. It means making room for values, not just variables.

For business schools, this requires a curricular and cultural shift—from a narrow focus on problems to an integrated openness to predicaments. This might take the form of courses in ethics, philosophy, literature, and spirituality. It might involve reflective journaling, community immersion, or silent recollection. These are not add-ons—they are essential to the formation of resilient, ethical, and imaginative leaders.

And for students, especially those grounded in technical training, it means realising that life’s most important decisions will not arrive with blueprints. They will require courage, humility, and a willingness to be transformed.

Conclusion: From Solving to Living and Loving

Thus, a problem can be solved. A predicament must be lived. Prose tells us what happened. Poetry invites us into what it means. In business, both are necessary. But we must not allow the measurable to eclipse the meaningful. 

Gabriel Marcel (1960) reminds us that mystery is not ignorance—it is intimacy. Søren Kierkegaard (1985) teaches us that anxiety is not a defect—it is a doorway to authenticity. And everyday life, for all its demands and data, calls us to remember that we are not machines but mysteries.

The future of business leadership does not lie in those who solve the most problems, but in those who have the courage to face predicaments with integrity and grace. This is not to abandon metrics, but to humanise them. Not to forsake placements and packages, but to situate them within a deeper narrative of purpose, a larger vision of the whole of reality.

For life, ultimately, is not a spreadsheet to be balanced. It is a mystery to be embraced, a poem to be cherished!  In depth and humility! That's living. And loving!

References

• Byung-Chul Han. (2015). The burnout society (E. Butler, Trans.). Stanford University Press.

• Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The sickness unto death: A Christian psychological exposition for upbuilding and awakening (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1849)

• Kierkegaard, S. (1985). Fear and trembling (A. Hannay, Trans.). Penguin Books. (Original work published 1843)

• Marcel, G. (1950). The mystery of being: Volume 1 – Reflection and mystery (G. S. Fraser, Trans.). St. Augustine’s Press.

• Marcel, G. (1960). Homo viator: Introduction to a metaphysic of hope (E. Craufurd, Trans.). Harper & Row.