...are your options really up for debate?
Picture this for a moment.
Image courtesy Pexels.
You got that guy chasing you.
You know perfectly well where a number of razor-sharp knives are kept.
Are your options really up for debate?
Are you gonna think about fending off the killer with a cordless phone?
Or just try to outrun them, even though you’re not really a seasoned runner?
Or, maybe you just do the damn obvious thing…
...and grab one of them sharp knives so you stand a realistic chance of fighting back against the murderer?
Gif courtesy giphy.
The obvious solution
Sometimes, it really IS the most obvious solution that works.
Gif courtesy giphy.
I know.
It will really come as a surprise, especially if you’re a fan of shows like Law and Order or NCIS…
...where the obvious solution is dismissed as “too easy” or “someone’s playing us”.
But a lot of the time, it’s the most obvious solution that’s the right one.
Here are 6 examples of situations where that works.
In an escape room
Gif courtesy giphy.
An escape room is all about solving puzzles, finding clues, and making out how to proceed.
However, a key pitfall is to overthink what a clue means, or overanalyze a particular puzzle, as Mark Rober’s Beat Any Escape Room video will tell you.
Not going for the obvious solution could be what stands between you and a successful escape.
Gif courtesy giphy.
Did you watch the video?
If you did, it might be a good idea to try out a live remote escape game, and put Mark’s tips to the test!
The whisky evaporated?
Gif courtesy giphy.
I read about this a while ago.
A college student had gotten the bright idea to do an experiment.
“For Science”, as he put it (and, no, he wasn’t a STEM student).
His idea was to leave a bottle of whisky on his table overnight, and study how fast whisky evaporates.
When he woke up and checked on his ‘science project’, he found the bottle almost empty.
Convinced he had uncovered a massive discovery, one especially useful for frat parties, he started redditing about his experiment.
A few people replied with explanations of their own - maybe the particular bottle was substandard, maybe it was too hot, and so on.
All very complicated theories.
But then came the zinger - the obvious explanation.
”Check your roommate’s breath”
The effing copy machine won’t work!
Gif courtesy giphy.
Brenda was getting redder and redder in the face.
All she had to do was make a dozen copies of a document and hand them out, and he could clock out for the day.
But the damn machine wouldn’t work.
Brenda tried everything.
Checked the paper trays.
Checked that the cover was set down properly.
Swore vigorously at the machine.
Nothing seemed to work.
Until someone who’d just clocked in, and was fresh and ready for a day’s work came in to see what the problem was.
And he had the machine running within a minute.
Gif courtesy giphy.
By turning on the power supply.
Keep tapping...NOT!
Gif courtesy giphy.
Ever been in the situation where your phone just doesn’t seem to work right?
Maybe it just froze, or it’s going haywire.
There are all sorts of solutions I’ve seen people turn to, in such cases.
Keep tapping on the phone to the best of their ability.
Ask a friend what to do.
Think about buying a new phone.
After all that, this might come as a low-key, obvious thing, but have you EVER just…
Tried restarting it?
Building collapse!
Hands up if you’ve even seen that scene in a movie where there’s a building collapsing, and people desperately trying to outrun it so as not to get crushed by it.
Gif courtesy giphy.
Of course you have!
In those scenes, did you notice that everyone simply starts running straight forward, along the direction the building is collapsing in?
Have you wondered why people don’t run sideways, avoiding the crash path?
Wouldn’t that be an obvious and right thing to do?
The One With The Ballroom Dancing
Remember the episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. where Joey has to teach the building super ballroom dancing and, more importantly…
Gif courtesy giphy.
...Ross tries to help Chandler quit the gym?
Then you remember how the gym used to call Maria...and their desire to quit just melted away?
And that they were desperate for a way out...and their solution was to close their bank account?
Is it just me, or were they overlooking the obvious solution of asking Joey to ask Maria out, and then visit the gym to quit when she was on her date?
And those were 6 situations where the obvious solution works...or logically should work...much better than complicated things people actually did.
Now, over to you.
Have YOU ever faced a situation in your life where there was an easy, obvious solution, but for some reason everyone went on a more complicated path?
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