Does a stitch in time always save nine?

Proverbs are some of the most powerful collection of words in any language, and one good example of such a proverb is, "A stitch in time saves nine". The literal meaning of this proverb is that if there is a small cut in a piece of cloth, getting it stitched as early as possible prevents the cut from getting bigger and requiring more number of stitches. But the actual intended meaning is that if there is a problem, fixing it early prevents the problem from growing bigger and getting worse. Now, if its just about a cut in a cloth, the problem is easy to identify and equally easy to fix. But, for good or bad, real life problems are neither so easy to identify nor to solve. And many times, if one person identifies a particular problem, not everyone around necessarily agree that the problem exists. And even if they agree, they may not agree about the extent of the problem and the need for an immediate solution. And sometimes the justification for this is another equally important proverb, "Time is the best healer"! The idea is that some problems may actually get aggravated by human intervention and are best resolved on their own. For example, if we get a mild fever, its sometimes better to allow the fever to subside on its own rather than popping a pill as soon as the thermometer crosses 100.

There are two main reasons why this confusion arises. Firstly, there is often lack of sufficient information and understanding of the system we are dealing with. A cut in a cloth or a simple bug in a computer program is easy to identify and resolve since we have sufficient information about how these systems work. But as the program gets more complicated, our understanding also diminishes and its often wise to ignore the warnings and errors that our computer screen shows at times. Secondly, what appears as a problem to one may be a welcome feature for another. A cut in a jeans may make one person discard it forever, and another person may purposefully make a cut in order to make a style statement. This has been a major cause of conflict between parents and teenagers in the last few decades. The second reason is perhaps impossible to overcome in general, but the first one seems solvable to some extent. It seems that though we may not fully understand all the systems now, in the future with the further advancement of science and technology, we might be able to understand them to a very good extent and thereby resolve this source of conflict. And if we believe in God, we may say that even though we humans don't fully understand the systems, God does and thats why its best to leave all complicated matters to his discretion. But is that really true? 

All the major concepts of God that humans have been able to develop through intellect or experience can be divided into two broad categories. In the first category are the concepts which broadly say that God is a formless entity that resides in some heavenly abode and from there controls our lives to varying extents through some kind of a remote control. In the second category are the concepts which consider that God can incarnate on planet earth in the form of humans and other living beings, and thereby directly make suitable amendments in earthly life as and when required. There is not much we can say about the first category of God since all that we know about that God is through human accounts which are likely to be distorted or at least limited. But the second category is quite interesting since there are words and texts which are directly attributed to have been said or written by God himself, thereby removing all human intervention. In this category, the most interesting and relevant incarnation of God is perhaps Krishna of Mahabharata, since he is one of the few God incarnations  (Avatar) who openly accepted his being God himself. So what does Krishna have to say about stitching things on time?

In verse 4.7 and 4.8 of the Bhagwad Gita, Krishna says:

यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत । 

अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम् ॥४-७॥ 

परित्राणाय साधूनां विनाशाय च दुष्कृताम् । 

धर्मसंस्थापनार्थाय सम्भवामि युगे युगे ॥४-८॥

Whenever there is decay of righteousness, O Bharata,

And there is exaltation of unrighteousness, then I Myself come forth;

For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers, 

For the sake of firmly establishing righteousness, I am born from age to age.

That sounds quite in line with the philosophy of stitching things on time. A simple interpretation would be that the society was going through a crisis, God incarnated to solve the problem and then went back to his heavenly abode. But two questions need to asked here. How grave was the problem when God decided to incarnate? And how deep was the social surgery required? In most accounts of Avatars, it is said that God incarnates when the situation gets real bad and perhaps it is no longer possible to solve it from up there. And in the Mahabharata, we do see that almost the entire army of Pandavas and Kauravas got wiped out at the end of the war. Clearly neither a case of stitch in time nor nine, but of an old tree being completely cut down and a new seed planted in its place. The lesson is loud and clear. Certain cuts should not be or perhaps cannot be stitched in time and allowed to deteriorate so that the system can be later discarded for new things to take their place. To preserve, it is sometimes important to destroy. Trying to prevent this natural process by too much human intervention can further perpetuate a rotten system and prevent a fresh system from taking its place.

So what should be correct proverb be? May be, "A stitch in time saves nine, for a certain period of time!"