Elephant Traps - The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly! 

    There are many things we do in life with the expectancy that our actions will somehow improve our lives. But do they really, and if so, how can we be sure. I call it the elephant trap conundrum. 
     A theoretical scenario: We put elephant traps in our back yard to protect our homes from elephants. And son of a gun, we’re not bothered by elephants. Now, the question is this: Did we not get any elephants in the back yard because they saw the traps and stayed away, or did we not get any elephants in the back yard because there are no elephants close enough to bother us anyway?
    Take pain medication for instance. We take pain meds to lessen pain. Right? Right. So, the pain meds seem to work. Is it because the pills worked, or because the pain was less anyway? 
    Another similar example: The dentist sends you home with some pills and says, “Now don’t wait until it hurts to take these. Just take one every two hours until the bottle’s empty. You experience very little pain. Again, was there really no pain or did the pills mask the pain like we’re told they’re supposed to? 
    Another example: We were going to drive over the Pass to visit the kids. The weather up there was terrible, traffic was being held up, and accidents were happing all over the place. As we got ready to go Lorraine says, “Make sure we have the tire chains along.” So I made sure the chains were in the trunk. We got over the Pass without a problem. The roads were dry, and the drive was not a problem. The big question is this: “Were the roads okay because the chains were in the trunk, or was there not going to be any snow on the roads anyway.” 
    Another recent example: We’ve been getting a lot of snow lately. By a couple days ago it had nearly all melted away except for the big piles I made when cleaning off the driveway and sidewalks. I thought, well, winter’s got that out of its system and wouldn’t try that again, so the snow shovel went back into the shed. A clear example of not putting out the elephant traps. Sure enough we got another five inches of snow the next day. Now would it have snowed if I had left the shovel in the garage where it was handy? We’ll never know. 
   See what I mean? Another conundrum.