"No Problem, But It Needs a Solution"

No Problem, But It Needs a Solution
By Bill Cosby from his book Fatherhood

When your fifteen-year old son does speak, he often says one of two things: either “Okay,” which as we know means “I haven't killed anyone.” Or he'll say “No problem.”
“No problem” has been my son's philosophy of life. Two years ago, he was one of the top ten underachievers in our state and whenever you asked him how he was doing in school, he always said with simple eloquence, “No problem.” And of course, his answer made sense: there was no problem, no confusion about how he was doing. He had failed everything; and what he hadn't failed, he hadn't taken yet. He had even failed English.
I asked him, “Son, how can you fail your native tongue?”
“Yeah,” he replied
Hoping to get an answer that had something to do with the question, I said again, “Please tell me: how can you fail English?”
“I don't know,” he said.
“Son, you didn't rally fail English, did you? You failed handing in reports on time, right? Because you can understand people who speak English, can't you? And when you talk, they can understand you, can't they? So the teacher understood what you had written but just didn't care for the way you put it, right? You just failed organization, right? I mean, the teacher who failed you in English also said, 'He can do the work.' It's just that you don't want to do it yet. And all it'll take for you to do the work is maybe leaving you out in the wilderness with no food or money in the middle of winter. Just a dime to make a collect call saying that you're ready to study now.”
“No problem,” he said.