Two weeks ago I realized I’d hurt my neck and shoulders. It took me an absurdly long time to figure it out.

There wasn’t a moment of OUCH. It was a whole lot of things that led me to realized that I’d been injured for several weeks—months?—and I didn’t realize it until it reached a crisis.

There are sensitive nerves in the shoulders and neck. Nerve damage results in weakness. I thought I was tired when I felt like my head wanted to nod down.

My physical therapist friend helped me figure it out. I wished I’d seen him sooner.

Why is it that I always find what I’m looking for the last place I look?

Once I find it I stop looking. See, I thougth I had found the answer. I thought I wasn’t getting enough rest. I’d been going to bed early ole time, based on that theory.

I was totally wrong.

For hundreds of years, the best medical treatment was based on the four humors, Doctors check their patients for how choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine and melancholic they were. Leeches were part of the treatments then.

It was a working theory. Everyone knew you had to watch the humors.

Until a better theory came along.

That’s not giving the right picture. The first theory—that one that everyone agrees on—does not let go without a fight.

It’s predictable. I’ve talked about The Structure of Scientific Revolution before. Theories about how things work, and what is going on, they are very sticky. People keep to their first idea very persistently.

I was really sure that I was not getting enough rest. I wondered if I needed to eat more vitamins or something. Why was I so TIRED all the time? I couldn’t keep my head up.

It wasn’t a bad idea to get extra sleep, I’m sure. But it wasn’t the root cause of my problem.I didn’t suspect that my neck muscles were weak, yet in hindsight I see I should have thought of it.

I have more energy now that I’m letting my shoulders heal. Since I clearly was hanging on to the wrong end of the stick on this, what else am I doing wrong?

I’m pretty sure there are a lot of things I’m wrong about. I just don’t know what they are yet. I should not stop looking.