Symptoms and Diseases

I never realized how accurate this ad is until the past couple days when I had to do some tech support on a Vista machine in a church office. It's ridiculous how often you get asked to do, well, just about anything in Vista. Of course, it's all because the base operating system has so many security holes that make it an easy target for a third-source that might want to damage your files. All of this reminded me of a quote I heard a while back, "Mac OSX, because making UNIX user friendly, was easier than fixing Windows."

All of this got me to thinking about how we address various issues in our life, be it a personal struggle, relationships, a group we're a part of, or whatever else. When an issue comes, are we like Microsoft folks who focus on eliminating the symptom (there's a risk for a security breech so we'll put something in place to guard the gaping hole), or do we take a Mac approach and address the actual problem (getting rid of the hole)?

I'm thinking, more often than not, when confronted by something, we look at what's right in front of us, the symptom, and try and deal with that, rather they trying to diagnose what's behind the symptom (the actual problem). The problem is, we address one symptom and another appears ... and then another ... and then another ... and then another.

However, if we operate diagnostically and use the symptoms to lead us to the actual problem, we can actually find a viable solution.

Thoughts? Are you a symptom or disease kind of person? Have any examples to share?