THE GORDIAN KNOT ...
PLEASE SPEND AS LONG AS YOUR CAN, HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES, TRYING TO UNTIE THIS KNOT. THAT'S THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN POSSIBLY DO IT. THINK AND STRUGGLE. IF YOU'RE PATIENT ...
The Gordian Knot ...
I've always loved this myth. It's a great picture of Alexander, support for the liberal arts education (a la Aristotle), the glimpse of the thought processes of a great leader, whom you might otherwise think to be action-oriented. Well actually he was. There's a time to think and a time to act.
If you know the story, enjoying thinking on it again. If it's new to you ... enjoy! And apply it for the Gordian knots in your life. We could call it "thinking outside the circle!"
Untying the Gordian Knot
One day, according to ancient Greek legend, a poor peasant called Gordius arrived with his wife in a public square of Phrygia in an ox cart. As chance would have it, so the legend continues, an oracle had previously informed the populace that their future king would come into town riding in a wagon. Seeing Gordius, therefore, the people made him king. In gratitude, Gordius dedicated his ox cart to Zeus, tying it up with a highly intricate knot - - the Gordian knot. Another oracle -- or maybe
the same one, the legend is not specific, but oracles are plentiful in Greek mythology -- foretold that the person who untied the knot would rule all of Asia.
The problem of untying the Gordian knot resisted all attempted solutions until the year 333 B.C., when Alexander the Great arrived. Having been told of the legend, he proceeded to look at the knot for a minute and then draw his sword and cut through it with one slice of the blade.
Now one of the sites I went to for this legend says at this point, "'Cheat' you might cry."
I hope your first thought was, "Darn! I wish I'd thought of that," or "How clever."
Someone who would say, "Unfair!" is excessively rule bound and will likely make it to CFO, but never to CEO. This is the kind of thinking leaders must have.
The narrator continued with, "Alexander's solution did seem to go againt the spirit of the problem. Like we're supposed to make something harder than need tbe? To deliberately sabotage ourselves by limited thinking.
Alexander was a former student of Aristotle (see my section on TEACHERS on the Club Vivo Per Lei site.
This "problem" is similar to the ancient Greek problem of squaring the circle, whicih is easy to solve, as long as don't try and use the obvious tools - the ruler and compass.
Using a compass and a ruler, it is impossible to construct a square within the same area as a given circle. And that knot Alexander saw, could not be untied ... or at least he saw a quicker, better way.
Take home point: When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The more you educate yourself, the more you develop all parts of your brain, and become whole-brained, the better you are going to be at solving problems.
They are not, as Einstein said, created on the same plane as their solution is likely to be.
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