Letter No 51 - Do you know your blind spots?
Published by Aditya Jhunjhunwala,
Which is faster, hot or cold?
Answer: Hot, you can easily catch cold.
Everyone loves riddles. Especially kids.
My kids thoroughly enjoy asking me and my wife riddles. But more than that, they enjoying it when we don't have the right answer. With a cheeky grin they will tell us the answer, and wait for us to go 'ooooooh... that's funny!!'.
Sharing some really funny ones for you...
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Forwards I am heavy .Backwards I am not. What am I?
Answer: Ton
What question can you never answer 'yes" to"
Answer: Are you asleep/ dead?
Why is six afraid of seven?
Answer: Because seven eight (ate) nine.
What starts with a "t",end with a "t" and is full of "t"?
Answer: teapot
What building has the most stories?
Answer: Library
What belongs only to you and yet is used more by others than by yourself?
Answer: My name
Why is a river rich?
Answer: It has two banks
A man jumped from a plane, but there was nothing wrong with him. Do you know why?
Answer: It's on the ground
If you drop a yellow hat in the Red Sea what will it become?
Answer: Wet
When you have me, you feel like sharing me. But, if you do share me, you don't have me. What am I?
Answer: A Secret
I have a head and tail but no body. What am I?
Answer: A coin
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Riddles require you to bring your mind to state of alertness, but also 'flowy-ness'. You must be logical, but you must go beyond the normal logic. That's what I love about them. They force you to find NEW LOGIC.
Finding new logic is what all progress in knowledge is about. Until new logic is found, old logic seemed unshakeable.
We all think we know some things. We believe they are true.
"I have tried so many times, but she just doesn't understand."
"My parents just don't get it."
"Exercise is not for me."
"I can't work with numbers, they give me a headache."
"I'm not musical."
"I don't like potatoes."
"I can't speak to strangers."
We define ourselves with what we think is true. Old logic.
We have to find new logic.
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Do this activity.
- Take a sheet of paper and draw two fat dots about 4 to 5 inches apart.
- Hold the paper in front of you at an arms length.
- Close your left eye, and look at the left dot with your right eye.
- Now slowly bring the paper closer and closer to your face.
- A point will come when the right dot just vanishes!
This is because of presence of a blind spot on your retina. It happens because the point where the optic nerve joins the retina doesn't have any light sensing cells.
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All of us have some blind spots in our life too. Here are 7 common blind spots (and their antidotes) that exist in many of us:
- Having a serious or sad face a lot of the time and not realising time. (Antidote - make an active effort to have a smile more often!)
- Having an irritable or tired tone of voice a lot of time. (Antidote - bring some lightness and energy into your voice)
- Tendency to blame people or situations when things go wrong. (Antidote - stop and write down 3 things you could do differently next time)
- Trying to control our emotions - and ending up getting frustrated. (Antidote - take time out to feel your emotions and let them pass)
- Gossiping about others. (Antidote - make it a point to speak good things about others even when they are not around)
- Saying 'I already know that' or 'I've done that'. (Antidote - stop trying to prove yours smartness, and focus on learning some small thing that you missed or could do better)
- Avoiding difficult conversations. (Antidote - prepare well, write your thoughts down, understand the consequence of having and not having the conversation, and then ask the other person for time to speak)
I certainly have some of these. From now I've decide to be alert to watch out for my own blind spots. And by the nature of the blind spots, we don't know which ones we have! So, if you know me, and you find one of my blind spots, please do tell me!
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