Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sick people are harder to heal than healthy people. That sure makes everything more difficult, but that seems to be reality.

Have you ever noticed that sick people are harder to heal than people who are well?

Sick people have many problems. Those problems interact with one another in complex and often impossible-to-see ways. Putting a band-aid on one of those problems worsens another problem by placing adhesive tape over it. Then you have to jerk the band-aid off in a couple of days when the cut heals. Ouch, that hurts and it often rips some other skin.

Consider a person who is overweight and wants to go on a diet. You know what they say,

Check with your physician before beginning an regimen of exercise and diet.

The doctor is afraid that the diet will affect your high blood pressure and its medication. The exercise might be good for your heart, but would aggravate the strained ligaments in your knee.

Hence, the person does not go on a diet and does not lose weight. They are too sick to get well.

I suppose I should relate this to projects or business or groups of people. The relation is pretty simple,

Once an endeavor has many problems, it becomes almost impossible to correct any one problem.

The answer is the same boring, fundamental one:

Pay attention everyday and prevent problems instead of trying to correct them.

Sorry, no universe-changing advice today.