Thinking Outside The Bottle

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ―George Bernard Shaw

I was at a party once and I picked up a cola bottle and a cap and looked at group of people and asked, “How would you get this cap in the bottle?” The first person I looked at simply looked back at me dumbstruck. In fairness, she was an incredibly beautiful woman, but I suspect she’ll ever make any investment in herself beyond the most superficial outer level.

In my experience, ask anyone this simple question and you’re likely to witness the human version of the proverbial “deer in the headlights” look. A large segment of the population isn’t interested in taking the time to learn how to think; they live lives dictated by marketing companies. They wear what they’re told is hot at the moment, watch shows on television that are mind numbing, and buy coffee that cost $7.50 a cup.

Maybe one out of every nine or ten people I ask will say, “Bend the cap…” without skipping a beat. It’s actually a rather rudimentary response. At least these folks are able to step back a bit, use some basic logic, and come up with a reasonable solution to the problem in front of them. That’s where most people stop. Fold the cap, drop it in, and that’s you done.

But I submit to you there’s other ways of looking at this problem.