I had a lot of memorable days back in high school. I kind of had a wide spectrum of experiences ranging from great days to horrible ones. That really isn’t the issue because that’s what I signed up for anyways.
One experience I will never forget was during a standardized test in Mathematics during my second year. It was much anticipated because the stakes were high… bagging a lot of marks in that test meant you could walk into the examination hall with your head held high because you knew there’ll definitely be some marks to fall on.
On the day of the standardized test, there were a lot of surprises. The first was that we had only one question to answer…just one little question. Then the biggest surprise was when our instructor told us that we could refer to any material of our choice and even discuss the question among ourselves…woow, no one saw that coming. After his surprise announcement, he gracefully made his way to the door and exclaimed, “And Oh, there’ll be no invigilation too…see you later. All the best.” One question to answer, freedom to search through any material of our choice, and no invigilation seemed too good to be true. It took some time for me to snap out of my bewilderment. After all, I had a paper to write.
Then it began… textbooks flew all around the room and the brilliant ones obviously had no rest from the incessant calls by the others. As time went by, I could sense frustration all over the room (not just their frustration, I could sense mine too). Close to one hour, we had done everything we could (at least that’s what we thought) but had nothing to show for it… absolutely nothing! Failure was staring us in the face and we couldn’t help ourselves. So after nearly 2 hours of misery, our instructor wearing a mischievous smile walked into the room and yelled “Time up! pass your papers”
We reluctantly passed our papers to him and immediately began pleading with him to show us some academic sympathy. We knew we had failed.To our surprise, he seemed surprised at our plea.
“You mean you couldn’t answer this question?”
” Of course Sir, it was too difficult”
” But it isn’t…”
So with that our instructor walked to the board and asked us two simple questions which we answered aloud in unison ( they were more or less our anthem). As we answered the last question, a sudden silence fell in the room. We realized, it was indeed easy just as he said, if not far easier. Why couldn’t we answer it then? Why couldn’t we provide the answers we knew all the while?
I feel this is not just true about standardized tests in Mathematics; it’s also true about life. Everything suggested to us that the question was difficult. With all the freedom our instructor gave us, we felt he knew that we could never answer the question. But we were wrong; it was easy and he expected us to have answered it with great ease. We erroneously gave meaning to the conditions which surrounded the test by thinking that if he would allow us cheat and that too with no restrictions, then the question had to be damn difficult. Because we never thought the question was easy, we didn’t give ourselves the permission to embrace simple thoughts and ideas.
We didn’t give ourselves the permission to embrace simple thoughts and ideas
A lot of times we also innocently believe so much in difficulty and complexities that we never realize how simple things really are. I think it was Dr. Mort Cooper who re-hushed the words of Albert Einstein by saying ” God made it all simple, only that we complicate. When we simplify, we speak in agreement with God because God made it all simple“. The true solutions are always simple, often embarrassingly simple. It’s not as complicated as we’ve been conditioned to think. It’s a lot easier. When we embrace the simple nature of solutions, it unlocks our inner wisdom were solutions flow effortlessly any time we encounter any challenge. No matter how difficult and harsh the condition of your life is, you might hate me for saying this but the solution is really simple.
It’s not as complicated as we’ve been conditioned to think. It’s a lot easier.
I may not be able to tell you immediately what the solution is and even if I did, you’ll still require some insight on your path to embrace it. The best you can do for yourself is to believe in simplicity. The simple solution will creep into your consciousness from your inner wisdom sooner or later when you believe.
Excellent! It is really in our nature to go past simplicity. We don’t expect it to be that simple, so we hardly see it as such. Much to learn, slowing down, realising everything is actually all too easy and taking it as such.
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Exactly! 🤩
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