Without a doubt, the world has problems; we have problems!
That's not exactly new news; problems have been part of the world and societies and civilizations and families pretty much since the beginning of time.
What are we going to do about these problems?
I watch the news, and I watch local politics, and I even watch things like our neighborhood homeowner's association and it increasingly feels like the only approach anybody employs anymore is managing problems, rather than actually solving them.
Whether it's in companies, or in healthcare, or in government, or even in local communities it seems like far more effort is being put into forming committees to study the problem, perhaps involving the hiring of consultants to nail down the details of the problem, at the end of which somebody stands up and declares that the problem has been "managed," but when you peel back the curtain to see what's going on the problem hasn't actually been solved.
But when you question those allegedly in charge they tell us to "be patient" and may even come back and say that it's an unsolvable problem.
But is it really?
Sometimes I think that the health care industry is perhaps the worst offender, in the way you come in to see a physician with something that is bothering you, so the doctor orders a bunch of tests, and draws a conclusion, and then gives you some instructions and medication that allegedly will ”manage” your condition.
And so, I keep going back to the doctor complaining about my — for example — chronic headaches, and the doctor keeps prescribing medication that will address my chronic headaches.
But here's the rub: Ten years later I still get chronic headaches, and I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on doctor's visits and medication and the problem persists. Sure, the problem of my headaches has been managed, and I have been a reasonably functional member of society but at no point in the process was time taken to unpack why I get headaches in the first place so that the underlying environmental conditions causing the headaches could be addressed and potentially removed so that the headaches would not occur.
And we do something very similar with social problems. For example, if there are people who are starving we create more food pantries to help them, rather than get down inside the problem of why there are so many people who are starving and solving the problem at its root.
Meanwhile, some city council member gets a bonus and an award for building more food pantries.
I suppose the great challenge we really face as a world; as a species; as individual societies and communities is that we have created a situation in which it is neither profitable nor politically expedient to actually solve problems, only to treat and manage them.
And it seems to me that the elephant in the room is that we are regarding what I will call the profit motive — for lack of a better phrase — like the proverbial ”sacred cow” that may never be touched or questioned.
I mean, here in the USA even the prison system is largely run by private industry as a ”for profit” proposition.
And when anybody brings up the topic of oversight, we cite ”government corruption and inefficiencies” as yet another problem that stands in the way of us actually getting to the root of any of our problems.
”We don't trust the government! They mismanage and screw everything up!”
OK. And why is that, exactly?
Will they actually screw everything up, or do we just say that because we're resentful of being told what to do?
Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful Sunday!
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2026.10.04 01:30 PDT
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