Sunday Musings - January 28, 2024
Many of us, as children, learned the story of Chicken Little. Chicken Little thought the sky was falling. In the story, one learns the danger is actually coming from a UFO. Chicken little was accurate about an impending disaster, but not about the cause of it.
Many of us are good at predicting when we need to be concerned about the health and safety of others or ourselves, but often err in diagnosing the cause. This is true in many areas of our lives here in the United States and elsewhere.
For example, we health care professionals are often guilty of treating symptoms and not identifying the cause. It may be relatively easy to attempt to temporarily relives the symptom by prescribing a medication or mental or physical exercises which briefly relieves or masks them. In my experience, however, seldom are my colleagues taught or even encouraged to do a holistic assessment and treatment plan. Our amazing human bodies will tell us something is wrong or off center but may not easily reveal the root cause of the issue. A recent death of a loved one might result in the symptoms of depression or anxiety, but it will not tell the clinician why some people are able to simultaneously grieve and experience joy. We know little about why a person such as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who grew up in the project with an alcoholic parent is so successful. Nor do we know why Judge Terri Jamison, an African American woman from Welch, WV was not beaten down by racism and sexism. We sometimes can identify some correlating factors with some combat veterans who are able to craft a good life without denying the horrors of their experience, but often we are unable to do so.
Similarity in the political realm we are good at pointing figures and shaking our heads at a political group or their supporters but are terrible at looking for or at the pain of those same individuals; the reason why so many seem to be fooled by the obviously false promises of the savvy, self-serving political candidate. On social media, televisions news channels and other communication souces we, like Chicken Little, cry about the sky falling because of the seeming misguided motives of those one opposes but have little to say about how we are going to address the pain of those who feel left out, ignored, or labeled as stupid, uneducated idiots or worse. Perhaps we do not even notice the underlying pain of some of our neighbors.
Similarly, we might decry the presence of those wishing to cross the border without bothering to accept responsibility for the historical policies and actions of our country which have adversely affected conditions in other American countries.
Perhaps it is time to trust the symptoms as alarms but look more closely at the etiology of the symptoms, who is benefiting from the tale of the falling sky. Perhaps we ourselves are directly or indirectly benefiting from the tale of the falling sky.
Certainly, we need to attend to the damage of the symptoms, but unless we are willing to face what discomfort might ensue from identifying the root causes, we will continue to patch the holes in the sky which are merely signs of a partly cloudy day.
Perhaps this election year in the United States is a good time to resolve to move beyond symptoms of anger and fake new to the root causes of what makes so many of us and our neighbors vulnerable to accepting the false explanation of the falling sky.
Written January 28, 2024
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Many of us, as children, learned the story of Chicken Little. Chicken Little thought the sky was falling. In the story, one learns the danger is actually coming from a UFO. Chicken little was accurate about an impending disaster, but not about the cause of it.
Many of us are good at predicting when we need to be concerned about the health and safety of others or ourselves, but often err in diagnosing the cause. This is true in many areas of our lives here in the United States and elsewhere.
For example, we health care professionals are often guilty of treating symptoms and not identifying the cause. It may be relatively easy to attempt to temporarily relives the symptom by prescribing a medication or mental or physical exercises which briefly relieves or masks them. In my experience, however, seldom are my colleagues taught or even encouraged to do a holistic assessment and treatment plan. Our amazing human bodies will tell us something is wrong or off center but may not easily reveal the root cause of the issue. A recent death of a loved one might result in the symptoms of depression or anxiety, but it will not tell the clinician why some people are able to simultaneously grieve and experience joy. We know little about why a person such as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who grew up in the project with an alcoholic parent is so successful. Nor do we know why Judge Terri Jamison, an African American woman from Welch, WV was not beaten down by racism and sexism. We sometimes can identify some correlating factors with some combat veterans who are able to craft a good life without denying the horrors of their experience, but often we are unable to do so.
Similarity in the political realm we are good at pointing figures and shaking our heads at a political group or their supporters but are terrible at looking for or at the pain of those same individuals; the reason why so many seem to be fooled by the obviously false promises of the savvy, self-serving political candidate. On social media, televisions news channels and other communication souces we, like Chicken Little, cry about the sky falling because of the seeming misguided motives of those one opposes but have little to say about how we are going to address the pain of those who feel left out, ignored, or labeled as stupid, uneducated idiots or worse. Perhaps we do not even notice the underlying pain of some of our neighbors.
Similarly, we might decry the presence of those wishing to cross the border without bothering to accept responsibility for the historical policies and actions of our country which have adversely affected conditions in other American countries.
Perhaps it is time to trust the symptoms as alarms but look more closely at the etiology of the symptoms, who is benefiting from the tale of the falling sky. Perhaps we ourselves are directly or indirectly benefiting from the tale of the falling sky.
Certainly, we need to attend to the damage of the symptoms, but unless we are willing to face what discomfort might ensue from identifying the root causes, we will continue to patch the holes in the sky which are merely signs of a partly cloudy day.
Perhaps this election year in the United States is a good time to resolve to move beyond symptoms of anger and fake new to the root causes of what makes so many of us and our neighbors vulnerable to accepting the false explanation of the falling sky.
Written January 28, 2024
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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