A symptom is a whisper. A disorder is a label. A prescription is a hammer.
The modern medical system has perfected this assembly line:
- You feel something—a twinge, a pain, a discomfort.
- A name is given to it—IBS, anxiety, gluten intolerance.
- A prescription follows—a pill, a protocol, a permanent restriction.
But what if we stopped for a moment? What if we asked why?
Not just “why does this happen in general?” but why did this happen to you, here, now, at this moment in your life?
A man swims near a landfill, falls ill, is given antibiotics. A year later, he can’t digest gluten. Doctors test him for celiac disease. Negative. More tests. Negative. Suggestions of anxiety. Psychosomatic IBS.
Until one doctor asks the right question: Did you take probiotics after those antibiotics?
A simple reset. A course correction. And he can eat gluten again.
This isn’t about gluten. This is about context. About remembering that humans aren’t generic machines with plug-and-play fixes. Our bodies carry the weight of our histories—where we’ve been, what we’ve eaten, how we’ve lived.
But today, we love a fast answer. A diagnosis. A disorder. A prescription.
Naval Ravikant says, “The modern struggle is that we’re over-medicated, over-diagnosed, and over-prescribed.”
Instead of listening to our bodies, we let an industry label us, categorize us, and sell us something.
Maybe the real disorder isn’t in us. Maybe it’s in the way we’ve outsourced thinking to a system that sees us as cases, not people.
So next time, before taking the pill, before accepting the label, before adjusting your life to fit a diagnosis—pause. Ask the deeper question.
It might change everything.