What follows is a trap. Even knowing that it is a trap, I would like you to note to yourself the first answer your brain presents to you because it is ‘obvious’ to your brain when on Autopilot. It will be the ‘right’ answer that will enable you to enjoy the point of today’s thoughts.

Here’s the puzzle. I buy a pencil and a rubber (eraser). The combined cost of the pencil and the rubber is £1.10 ($1.10 works equally well, and this is not a lateral thinking puzzle but rather simple maths). The pencil is £1 (or $1) more than the rubber.

How much is the rubber?

I’ll leave a bit of space before revealing the answer I hope your brain offered you, and I’ll put an alternative solution in the comments after giving the early birds a chance to solve the puzzle.

In our mind, it seems we have an Autopilot and a Poet. The Autopilot saves us a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of oxygen. Did you know your brain is about 2.5% of your body weight but uses 25% of your oxygen? Thinking is very expensive!

The Poet takes a lot of time and energy and oxygen to reflect on Life, its mysteries, and our place in the Universe. Thus, for most of the time, we run on Autopilot.

But the Autopilot gets some important matters wrong. For example, the ‘right’ answer, according to the Autopilot, is that the rubber/eraser costs 10p and the pencil, a £1. Pat yourself on the head if you got it right.

But that’s not the right answer, mathematically.

If the rubber/eraser is 10p, and the pencil costs £1 more than the rubber, the pencil must cost £1.10 and the total is £1.20. You’ll need to be more Spock.

It is my suggestion that some of what goes on in our heads and brings us to or maintains us in a depressed state is the result of thinking on Autopilot. Unexamined patterns of thoughts trigger unresourceful feelings (the ones we know from the Moodscope Cards), and beliefs that remain unchallenged can keep us low. You know some of these beliefs – they will be about how you see yourself, what you can and cannot do, what you should and should not do. The unchallenged life can sometimes be not worth living. However, Life is worth living and thus we must allow the Poet or the Philosopher within us to challenge our beliefs, our patterns of thought, our assumptions – all rather than what the Autopilot presents to us as ‘obvious’.

Some questions the Poet or Philosopher use include:

Q. According to whom?

Q. What stops you?

Q. Is this always true?

Q. What would happen if…?

I invite you to press ‘pause’ this week and turn off your Autopilot. Think about how you feel and what you think and believe about your identity, your importance, your values, the permissions you give yourself…

Lex 

A Moodscope member