The Chimney Cap

(a parable)

A man was going merrily through his day when suddenly his wife stops him and says, pointing to the roof, “Look at that Chimney!  The cap has blown off.  What are we going to do?”   “I will fix it today” he said.  "It will be simple, and cheap, and certainly affordable."

So the man assembles his tools, gathers up some raw materials and climbs up on the roof to fix the cap.  When he gets there he finds it has blown off because the fasteners holding it on had rusted so thoroughly there was nothing holding to the structure.  The tools the man had were useless; the material the man had could not be bent and shaped to secure the existing pieces. 

Once he understood the cause he could now consider how best to fix the chimney to prevent the squirrels and birds from entering, keep the rain from falling in, and ensure the chimney would function as it should, pulling the smoke from the fireplace.  

Because he had rushed to fix the chimney with what he though was a simple solution, without first really understanding the problem he wasted a lot of time and effort on a path doomed to failure.