Don't Make the Cure Worse than the Problem

After I hobbled into the doctors' office, unwrapped my extremely swollen knee and waited for the doctor, I began to relax. Help was on the way! I would feel better in just a short time.

Just then the doc came in. He never told me his name, curtly asked me what happened, and then approached my throbbing knee with a vengeance. He gripped my leg just above the ankle so tightly that I gasped in pain. He then pushed my leg up and down to see how much more pain he could cause me.

Then he grasped my other leg with the same vice-like grip and pushed that unharmed knee up and down. The knee was fine but the pain he inflicted on my lower leg was outrageous.

I was so stunned that he was hurting me so badly that I couldn't speak.

While this is an extreme example of a cure that was worse than the problem, I think many of us experience that phenomenon in many walks of life.

There's the garden center cashier who is so nasty and unpleasant that I want to leave all the pretty flowers I've just selected for purchase and go somehwere else.

There's the waiter who drops the check on the table without the slightest effort to ask if we want coffee or dessert.

There's the brown and wilted lettuce in a salad that clearly stood in the fridge over night, and that the chef thought I wouldn't notice.

Maybe you're not like the doctor--but what do you do everyday to ensure that you're not like these other people either?