He Knew He Had Spiders

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I remember when I was in pest control, I had a client who complained of having spiders in his finished basement. "No, problem," I told him. "I can take care of that for you." After some time, he came down to check on me, and saw I had pulled a drain cover off in his laundry room on the floor. He seemed perplexed. "The webs are up there, by the window," he said, "And over here in this corner." He knew he had spiders. In his mind, the spiders were the problem. He could see them, he knew they were there, and he wanted them gone. It was that simple. Just kill the spiders, right? But does that really make the spiders go away? I mean, sure. The ones I kill today definitely won't return. But what about after that? Won't more just come? "The problem," I told my client, "is not that you have spiders. The problem is why are they here in the first place?" In other words, the spiders were in his basement because there was something there for them to eat. Find the food source, and take it away, and the spiders will go somewhere else or die from starvation. The key here was to observe the webs and see what was in them. I saw drain flies trapped in the gluey death traps. It always illustrated to me how many people fail to see the bigger picture, let alone consider it. Many people fail to think deeper or understand things. Problems we face in our lives are often dealt with in similar fashion. The spiders were the symptom. But the problem was the dirty drains. Sometimes we have to look beyond just what we can see and look for what we can't. At the things that are below the surface and more important to find if we want real solutions. Because the reality is that the real problems we have are not going to be as obvious as a load of cobwebs with spiders lurking in them. In order to find real solutions, we need more details and a keener sense.