Earlier this week, in Arctic temperatures, I drove my daughter and four of her friends back to college in upstate New York.

Even as I set out across the frozen tundra of the Massachusetts Turnpike and the New York Thruway, I wasn’t terribly worried. Gas tank was full. Tires checked. Plenty of warm clothes and snacks on board. No problem.

Well, no problem until the poor road conditions resulted in a much longer trip and thus the need for more gas—quickly. And no problem until discovering that the gas station promised at Exit 5 was actually long-abandoned. And no problem until arriving at the next gas station to find that my gas cap cover was solidly frozen shut. And no problem until realizing that, even after spending 10 minutes in -15° windchill chiseling the ice out from around the gas cover, it was still frozen shut. That’s right. You can’t make this stuff up.

Finally, after grabbing a cup of very hot water from the mini-mart and pouring it onto the gas cover, problem solved.

I’m going to face problems every day. So will you. And guess what? You can’t prevent all of them. Your boss will ask you to revise the data as you rush out the door. The client will unexpectedly accelerate the deadline. Your laptop will croak mid-presentation. Your child will dump a container of salt into your printer (yeah, that was fun).

In every instance, you have two choices: #1- Lose your cool or #2- Figure it out.

What will you choose? I suggest #2. It makes a heck of a lot more sense to pour your energy into solving the problem instead of screaming about it. (Which is why I will devote huge amounts of energy into solving the next problem on my list: how to convince my other kids to attend college in Miami.)