Thinking “Out of the Box”

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Many years ago, in a small town in Italy, a merchant found himself in a difficult situation. He owed a significant amount of money to a moneylender. This moneylender, who was old and unattractive, had his eye on the merchant’s beautiful daughter. So, he offered a deal: he would cancel the merchant’s debt if he could marry the daughter. Both the merchant and his daughter were appalled by the offer.

The moneylender then proposed a seemingly fair solution. He said he would place a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would choose one pebble. If she selected the black one, she would marry him, and the debt would be cleared. If she picked the white one, she wouldn’t have to marry him, and the debt would still be forgiven. But if she refused to pick, her father would be thrown into prison.

They stood on a pathway covered in pebbles in the merchant’s garden. As the moneylender bent down to gather two pebbles, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had secretly picked up two black pebbles. He placed them in the bag and asked her to choose.

Now, what would you have done in her position? If you were to advise her, what would you suggest? A careful analysis presents three possible options:

1. Refuse to pick a pebble.
2. Reveal the moneylender’s trickery by showing both pebbles were black.
3. Pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself to save her father from debt and imprisonment.

However, the girl came up with a clever solution that neither of these options considered. She reached into the bag, pulled out a pebble, and intentionally dropped it onto the pebble-strewn path. The pebble quickly blended in with the others, making it impossible to identify.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” she said. “But no worries. If you check the remaining pebble in the bag, you’ll know which one I picked.”

Since the remaining pebble was black, the moneylender had no choice but to pretend that the girl had picked the white one. He could not expose his own deceit, and thus, the girl turned a seemingly impossible situation into a favorable one.

MORAL: Even the most difficult problems often have a solution, but sometimes we need to approach them with a different perspective.