of Judge Harold
Wright
Judge Wright had in his court
a couple who had come to him to settle a dispute. They had given up on arguments
and had decided on divorce unless a solution could be found. In response Judge Wright told the
following fable:
Many years ago in a small
village, a farmer had the misfortune of
owing a large sum of money to
a village moneylender.
The moneylender, who was old
and ugly, fancied the farmer's
beautiful daughter. So he
proposed a bargain.
He said he would forgo the
farmer's debt if he could marry his
daughter. Both the farmer and
his daughter were horrified by the
Proposal.
So the cunning moneylender
suggested that they let providence
decide the
matter.
He told them that he would
put a black pebble and a white pebble
into an empty moneybag. Then
the girl would have to pick one pebble
from the
bag.
1) If she picked the black
pebble, she would become his wife and her
father's debt would be
forgiven.
2) If she picked the white
pebble she need not marry him and her
father's debt would still be
forgiven.
3) But if she refused to pick
a pebble, her father would be thrown
into
jail.
They were standing on a
pebble-strewn path in the farmer's field. As
they talked, the moneylender
bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he
picked them up, the
sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up
two black pebbles and put
them into the bag.
He then asked the girl to
pick a pebble from the bag.
Now, imagine that you were
standing in the field. What would you
have done if you were the
girl?
Careful analysis would
produce three possibilities:
1. The girl should refuse to
take a pebble.
2. The girl should show that
there were two black pebbles in the bag
and expose the moneylender as
a cheat.
3. The girl should pick a
black pebble and sacrifice herself in
order to save her father from
his debt and imprisonment.
Take a moment to ponder over
the story. The above story is used with
the hope that it will make us
appreciate the difference between
lateral and logical
thinking.
The girl's dilemma cannot be
solved with traditional logical
thinking. Think of the
consequences if she chooses
the above logical
answers.
What would you recommend to
the girl to do?
Well, here is what she
did....
The girl put her hand into
the moneybag and drew out a pebble.
Without looking at it, she
fumbled and let it fall onto the
pebble-strewn path where it
immediately became lost among all the
other
pebbles.
"Oh, how clumsy of me," she
said. "But never mind, if you look into
the bag for the one that is
left, you will be able to tell which
pebble I
picked."
Since the remaining pebble is
black, it must be assumed that she had
picked the white one. And
since the moneylender dare not admit his
dishonesty, the girl changed
what seemed an impossible situation
into an extremely
advantageous one.
Moral of the
story:
Most complex problems do have
a solution. It is only that we don't
attempt to think, and if we
do think, don’t think long enough.
And so the couple thanked
Judge Wright and set to thinking without rancor. The last Judge Wright heard,
the couple were reconciled as problem solvers who lived happily ever
after.
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