Recently my youngest boy came in the house
and was proud to show me that he had helped weed the dandelions out of our
front yard. He showed me a handful of yellow flowers that he had snapped off at
the head. I explained that just pulling off the top does not solve the problem, since you have to remove the roots if you want to be free of weeds long term.
Failing to address the root of a problem
is a common problem our society faces. When it comes to our health, we are
frequently guilty of merely treating symptoms, as opposed to correcting the
source of the problem. This is known as the iceberg principle.
It is natural for us to focus our
attention on the obvious problems that are visible to us on the surface, but the "tip of the
iceberg" is just a small portion of the problem. Doing so may cause some
immediate relief, but we are still oblivious to the cause of the problem and, thus, unable to solve it.
Our health can be likened to the iceberg principal in that many underlying problems occurring at the subconscious level
physically manifest themselves as disease in our bodies. You temporarily treat a headache
with aspirin, allergies with an antihistamine, or depression with anti-depressants, but if you don't address
what is causing those problems, then you are only masking symptoms and not getting to the root of them.
