Imagine you’re walking along a street one night and you see a house on fire. The house is lit up in bright-red flames and black smog creep up the sky like a huge cloud. You grab your phone and dial 000, to which the receiver asks you, “police, fire or ambulance?” What do you say first?

You’d probably say fire. While there are likely people with burns that require medical treatment, the main problem is the fire. It doesn’t matter if you bring 50 ambulances – if you don’t put out the flames, they will continue raging on until the whole town evacuates or gets burned down as well.

The root cause of the problem is the fire. The people with burns is the symptom.

The scenario above seems obvious enough. Yet in many cases, it’s tempting to address the symptoms instead of the causes of a problem. Consider these cases:

• Caffeine addresses fatigue (symptom), which is usually due to poor sleep hygiene (cause).
• Medicine addresses disease (symptom), which is usually due to unhealthy lifestyle choices (cause).

These “solutions” are band-aids. We are ignoring the main fire burning away. Only addressing the true causes can lead to the proper resolution of a problem.

The next time a conflict arises, let’s think of ways to solve the root of the problem, not just the symptoms.