Applied Happiness Coaching

I was talking to my mother today about riddles and how it’s usually the simplest thing that makes them so difficult, and it got me thinking.  What an incredible truth about life.  We are presented a problem – a simple one – and our brains fire off a million solutions, emotions, actions, suggestions, thoughts – ultimately we sometimes end up completely lost.  It’s time to step out of your mind, and just choose the easiest, most novel of choices to solve life’s riddles.  Here, let me give you a couple examples to see how fast you can solve them. These riddles are incredibly easy; you just have to stop think about it, and answer.

A guy rides into town on Friday, stays three days, and leaves on Friday.  How did he do it?

Two coins add up to $0.30, and one of them is not a nickel.  What are the coins?

Are you firing off possible solutions yet?  Try this one.

You walk into a room and close the door.  There is a bathtub, so you get in and start running the water.  It begins to fill-up, so you try o shut off the water and you cannot.  The door is sealed shut, so the water is rising higher and higher.  You see two windows up at the top of the room, so you figure you can just float up to them and get out, but as you near them you learn they are sealed shut too.  How do you get survive?

Life is filled with riddles at every turn.  By default, from years of being turned on, your brain is conditioned to fire a million ideas, suggestions, and emotions every millisecond.  90% of the time this amounts to worry, anxiety, fear – all from too many ‘what-if’ questions running through it.  What if you could stop the madness, and just reach out and select the right answer on a hunch?

The answer, my friends, is faith.  When you let go of the anxiety and have complete faith that you are doing the right thing, going the right way, or choosing the right answer, you will every time.  The secret is to stop thinking so much, and just go with what feels ‘right’ and seems almost trivial in nature. The answers to the riddles above will prove this.

How did he ride into town in Friday, stay three days, and leave on Friday? Friday was the horse’s name.

Two coins add up to $0.30, and one is not a nickel.  Well then the OTHER one is a nickel.

How do you survive the bathtub overflow? Simply pull the plug, and let it drain.

These answers seem so trivial, but they’re correct.  How many of you really thought about it? How many realize now that you thought TOO MUCH about it, and it didn’t end up being the right answer?  Hey, me too. I frequently have trouble turning off my brain, and just following my first hunch.  In life, riddles come at you all day, and if you just have faith that you already have the answer, and it’s going to be easy for you, it will.  You’ll stop thinking and start doing.

Have an outstanding Wednesday!

Blake