Philosophy schmilosophy

Today at my Chem Eng design session I learnt something totally profound and philosophical.

Say you have a Problem, and you have a Present State and a Desired State.

To come up with a Solution to your Problem, you either move from Present State --> Desired State, or conversely from Desired State --> Present State.

So take for example, my Problem is that I want a particular something which I don't have. Hence,
Present state: I don't have a particular something.
Desired state: I have that particular something.

If I move from Present State --> Desired State, my Solution would be, well, to GET that particular something.

On the other hand if I choose to move from Desired State --> Present State, my Solution to the Problem is: make it OK for me to NOT have that particular something.

Excellent.