The Wrong Cause

At CIIN, I talk to people every month who are most likely misidentifying the cause of their distress. A woman thinks her couch has somehow gotten contaminated, but it turns out her new neighbor cleans with chlorine bleach. A man thinks the sewer is venting into his house, but he has just started parking his car in his attached garage.

But the situation is usually not clear cut, and people too often latch onto the first thing that comes to their attention. And then they can find themselves working like crazy to make their life fit into the world that evolved from misidentifying the problem. It's like trying to drive a square peg into a round hole — even if you appear to be making progress, you are not fixing the problem.

My message, as poorly as it has come across here, is that if you think you have identified the cause of your trouble and no solution you come up with seems to fix it, consider the possibility that you focused on the wrong thing. Keep an open mind.

Well, I am done babbling for now. Good luck.