Thank you for this! With respect to the starfish story, the boundary around which you draw problems seems important. You can say "there's this One Big Problem wherein this big group of starfish will dry out on the beach," and this framing invites completionism. And to be clear, save all the starfish you can! But you can also say "there are several individual problems wherein individual starfish will individually dry out on the beach," and this framing invites viewing each starfish saved as a win. With some problems, labeling it all as One Big Thing can help emphasize systematic failures and points of leverage to solve more of the individual component problems. But it's important to remember that, at least in some contexts, solving the whole thing is only instrumental to solving the component problems.
Thank you for this! With respect to the starfish story, the boundary around which you draw problems seems important. You can say "there's this One Big Problem wherein this big group of starfish will dry out on the beach," and this framing invites completionism. And to be clear, save all the starfish you can! But you can also say "there are several individual problems wherein individual starfish will individually dry out on the beach," and this framing invites viewing each starfish saved as a win. With some problems, labeling it all as One Big Thing can help emphasize systematic failures and points of leverage to solve more of the individual component problems. But it's important to remember that, at least in some contexts, solving the whole thing is only instrumental to solving the component problems.