Problem Solving

"About 10 years ago I began an afghan for my daughter Sarah. I procrastinate a lot and the years went by as I periodically worked on it. By the time I realized that I did not have enough yarn to complete the project, the yarn was no longer available. So the afghan sat until last fall when I sewed what I had completed together. It was far too small to be useful as anything at all. I did not know what to do.

The pieces are jagged edged and I couldn't figure out how to increase the size of the afghan. The pattern called for two rows of cream colored yarn to be crocheted around the finished afghan to complete it. I thought about it for a long while and finally decided to crochet around the edges in the cream colored yarn until the afghan was the size I wanted. The only problem was that the end result was the edge appeared ruffled and wouldn't lie flat. So I took another approach. I decided to crochet in the jagged edges and then crochet around the whole thing. That didn't work either and I was at a loss as what to do. And so the afghan sat for an entire year, unfinished and unworked on.

Last night, while lying in bed at the end of a very emotionally charged day I had a brainwave. I would pull out all the work I had done and make up the required number of blocks I would need out of the cream yarn. Once I have this done, I can sew it all together and I will have an afghan of a useful size.

I couldn't believe that this idea had not dawned on me before. It got me to thinking about how we approach problem solving. We look at a problem and react in a set way. Our responses are the result of societal and familial ways of doing things. These do not always work or give us the results that we want or need. We need to think outside the box, not follow standard ways of doing things, to leave the pattern behind and make our own way. It can take courage to set out on a path of your own making, to solve problems in a way that others do not choose. What is important is to find what works for you and then follow that path. As long as a workable solution is reached, that fullfills all the requirements, what does it matter the path that led you there?" I whisper.

Are you listening?