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Is this the problem or just a symptom of something larger?




There are three things that really hit over the past two weeks. These new ideas have me thinking about how I approach problems and then move to solve them.

For years Mariano has been coaching me along this pathway and now it is all coming together. The big idea he was guiding me towards was to stop jumping towards solutions before fully understanding the whole problem.

Water
    Last week I was in a stream with a biologist studying the issues surrounding stream erosion. He told us a story about New York City. The city had a growing issue of the declining quality of the drinking water. One solution was to spend many billions of dollars building a treatment plant, a solution that would require significant and expensive maintenance every year.
     The solution they deployed was to go way up river and fix a few issues. This greatly improved the water quality making it much easier to fix in the city. This solution was much cheaper and has a lasting impact all along the river.

The Body
     The last two came when we took a trip to St. Louis University. We participated in a demonstration of how certain body parts work together as one. Someone in the audience asked how planter factitious happens and impacts movement. The presenter showed us on the cadaver where the symptoms manifest then pointed to where issue is actually located. These two points where nowhere near each other.
     The final event was during our pig heart dissection. The instructor was showing us three actual human hearts and pointing out the issues in two of them. He mentioned his frustration with school banning things like chocolate milk. While the underlying idea is sound, it misses the larger point which is movement. He is starting to see elementary kids with heart issues due to inactivity. While we ban certain foods it does not solve the underlying issue of inactivity.

These big ideas were a great reminder to me about slowing down and thinking before offering a solution. Sometimes I jump to solve the issue without really determining if what I am seeing is just a symptom or the root of the problem.

I am hopeful I can remember these lessons as the year starts to get busier. I hope to stop and think way up the river to see if the solution is really miles away from where I am.

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