Turn the Paper Sideways

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Sometimes I need to approach a persistent problem with a new way of thinking. The Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez said, “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” His image reminds me to always be my own person, but it also challenges me to think creatively. Turning the paper sideways is like looking at situations from different angles.

Henry L. Mencken said it first: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong.” And how often I am determined to keep pounding on that simple and neat solution until I make it work, or else I finally give up altogether. But success will surprisingly come when I decide to look at the thing from a wholly different perspective. 

Several all night convenience stores in New York City learned something about viewing problems another way. Evidently, some of the stores had a problem with teenagers hanging out in their parking lots late into the night. Not that they didn’t like kids; they liked them very much. But customers complained that they were afraid to approach them in the dark and push through them to enter the store. Neighbors complained that couldn’t sleep with the noise. And store personnel were worried about the well-being of the young people themselves. Late at night, these neighborhoods were unsafe. 

Managers tried various methods to solve the problem. They asked the kids to find a safer place to congregate. They asked them to move away from the doors so customers didn’t have to push through them. They asked them to discard their cigarette butts and trash in outdoor receptacles and not litter the parking lot. Each solution was simple, neat and completely ineffective. It seems that any of them should have worked. But none of them did and many of the store managers eventually gave up in frustration on solving the problem.

Finally, one man came up with an unusual idea. He decided he had been approaching the situation all wrong. Asking the teens to change their behavior didn’t work, so he tried something different. He just piped easy-listening music into the parking lot -- slow, soothing instrumentals especially suited for mature listeners.

No more loitering.

Sometimes we just need to look at things differently. Again and again we butt up against the same old problem. It may involve a child or parent, a friend or lover. It might be a problem with a co-worker. Maybe it’s just a complex situation we’re working through, or a personal problem with which we can’t seem to make any headway. And so far, everything we’ve tried has failed. Perhaps it’s time to turn the paper around and write the other way; to look at the problem a whole new way.

Here’s a good question to ask: “How can I come at this thing from a different angle?” Because there is likely something you’re not seeing.

A father and his daughter were stopped by a flight attendant before boarding their plane. The problem? The little girl was clutching a large bouquet of balloons. In sympathetic tones, the attendant told the child that she would not be permitted to travel with all of the balloons. “Only one is allowed per passenger,” she said in a voice that concluded there’s nothing to be done. After all, rules are rules.

Father and daughter decided they could each carry one. So with tears in her eyes, the little child selected her two favorite balloons for the flight. But before she could discard the rest, another passenger intervened. “Here, I’ll take one,” he said. He quickly saw a solution to the problem and proceeded to give one balloon to anybody in line who would take one. As she disembarked, every balloon was returned to the happy child.

Here was a man who just looked at the problem a different way. Instead of saying, “There’s nothing be done,” he turned the paper sideways and the answer was clear.

When you turn your paper sideways, what do you see?

-- Steve Goodier

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Imagination Is Everything

Three-year-old Jonathon is gifted. And precocious. I’m told that when his parents took him to a restaurant, he ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. “Jonathon, I’m sorry, we don’t serve grilled cheese sandwiches,” the server replied.

He asked playfully, “You have a grill, don’t you?”

She answered, “Yes.”

He continued, “You have cheese, don’t you?”

“Yes, we do.”

“You have bread, don’t you?”

“Yes.

“Well,” he said, “I’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich.”

Three years old. (You may think his parents should have taught him better manners, but please don’t let that keep you from seeing the marvel of this small child’s imagination.)

The smiling server returned after checking with the chef and told the boy they would be happy to fix him the sandwich. “But I forgot to ask you what you want to drink,” she said.

“I’ll have a milkshake, please.”

“I’m sorry, Jonathon, but we don’t serve milkshakes,” she answered. But this time she was ready for him. “Now, it is true we have milk. And it is true we have ice cream. But we don’t have syrup,” she explained.

He laughed. “You have a car, don’t you?”

There’s always a solution. Whatever other intellectual gifts Jonathon seems to have, the trait that may serve him best is imagination. He has the valuable ability to imagine a solution to whatever problem comes his way.

Albert Einstein famously said, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” In other words, what we can see in our imagination today we may experience in life tomorrow. He also said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” He knew that we humans are limited by how much we can learn, but we are never limited by how much we can imagine.

I have come to realize that I am held back far more by my lack of imagination than by my circumstances. When I believe nothing can be done, I search for a way OUT of the difficulty when I OUGHT to be searching for solutions. How can I change anything when I’m looking for a way out? When I perceive my situation as impossible, I resign myself to that fate and give up.

But WHAT IF I were to look at it differently? WHAT IF I approached it in a different way? WHAT IF a creative answer could actually be found? I often settle for less when I should be asking myself powerful questions that begin with the words “what if. . .”

Some two hundred years ago a class of noisy boys in a German primary school was assigned a task to keep them busy. They were instructed to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100. The children settled down, scribbling busily on their slates -- all but one. This boy looked off into space for a few moments, then wrote something on his slate and turned it in. His was the only right answer. When the amazed teacher asked how he did it, he said he wondered if there might be some shortcut. He went on to say, “I found one: 100 plus one is 101; 99 plus two is 101; 98 plus three is 101, and, if I continued the series all the way to 51 plus 50, I have 101 fifty times, which is 5,050.”

The teacher decided then that this child needed special tutoring. The boy was Karl Friedrich Gauss, and he became a great mathematician of the 19th century.

Gauss solved his problem when he asked himself the question, “What if there is a shortcut?” Two of the most powerful words I know are “what if.”

The solution to my problem, the way through a dilemma or the beginning of that next creative change in my life almost always starts when I decide that I am NOT locked in. “What if” questions release my imagination so I can better see what was hidden.

Imagination is everything. And what if I were to use the words “what if” more often? I can only imagine what might happen.

-- Steve Goodier

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