Things that look easy to fix are usually just symptoms

It often begins with a lie

An avalanche of ignorance in my youth* was started by a speck of a lie. A lie disguised as truth and promoted to the rank of belief that left in it’s wake emotional destruction and chaos.

Bad beliefs are dangerous. They’re sneaky double agents engineered to hide. Dressed up like truths, they do their damage when nobody’s watching, serving their true masters with an enviably unwavering persistence.

Our beliefs are the core programs that run our lives. Too often, they go unchallenged. Ignored even.

Habits aren’t as scary. We like those. We can even talk about behaviors when the mood is right. Routines are fun too. We love faux optimizing routines.

Why don’t beliefs get the same affection? They do all the heavy lifting in our lives. Or maybe that’s why. Maybe we understand that beliefs are both of utmost importance and a choice.

So, what was this corrosive belief of my youth?

It’s almost embarrassing to write, that’s how obviously wrong I was. And yet I believed it for decades.

I believed that people would change, if only they knew what I knew.

In effect, I thought I could fix people and their problems. When challenged, the lie crumbles. Simply reverse it.

I would change, if only I knew what they knew.

When people told me what they knew, I didn’t change. Not really.

I didn’t change because it felt like they didn’t “get” me. They didn’t understand what was really going on. They only knew what they could see, not the real me. They only thought they knew me. (In retrospect, that part was actually true.)

If you can relate to that, you already know the outcome of people trying to change people by sharing what they think they know.

Stalemate

I wouldn’t change because their advice didn’t apply. They were just looking at the problems they thought they could fix.

Isn’t it ironic that I was doing the same thing?

I was wrong.

I didn’t know what was really going on.

What I knew was as worthless as the cheap diagnosis I relied on to get me to my conclusions on time.

I thought I knew what the problems were. (I didn’t. Probably because diagnosing problems is hard work, designing solutions is a lot of fun, and sounding smart to myself was the easiest thing to do.)

The deeper issue is important. Most people don’t want our help with the thing that looks easy to fix. They’re right.

The things that look like fixable problems are usually just symptoms.

There are deeper issues that we don’t understand. Issues based on identity-grade beliefs. The type of beliefs we don’t like to talk about or admit that we have. Issues requiring work to relate. So we just come up with a quick fix to the easy to spot symptom that we diagnosed instead. Then congratulate ourselves for being above average. No results necessary.

Let’s look at obesity and opioids.

Obesity is an easy problem to “fix”. (1) Diagnosis: too many fat cells. (2) Solution: drink plenty of water, eat fewer calories than burned, and get some rest.

Sounds easy enough, right? The problem is that “too many fat cells” is a lousy diagnosis. That’s a symptom. So the proposed solution is worthless. (The actual problems are complex and look bad on social media.)

What about opioids? That’s even easier, right? (1) Diagnosis: taking pills. (2) Solution: stop taking pills. Doesn’t that diagnosis sound pretty foolish? There’s obviously something deeper going on. But how many times are we just diagnosing the symptom?

Maybe some more examples of bad diagnoses will help:

(1) Diagnosis: sales are down. (2) Solution: keep doing the same thing, but more of it faster.

(1) Diagnosis: people who voted for the other party are fools. (2) Solution: tell them they’re fools.

I hope you get the idea. What we’re dealing with is a failure to effectively diagnose.

I know I’m probably wrong.

I often am, and I’m ok with that.

However, I believe accurately diagnosed problems skew towards being solvable. And I believe we can better diagnose problems by combining perspectives, especially the perspectives of the people we think we’re helping.

So I’m going to work on gathering perspectives before making diagnoses.

Which means I’m also going to be diagnosing fewer problems.

That seems important.

*By youth I mean past me. I can’t speak for future me.