What would you do…?

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Many hundreds of years ago in a small Italian town, a merchant had the loss of owing a huge sum of cash to the moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, wanted the merchant’s stunning daughter so he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the merchant’s debt if he could get married to the little girl. Both the merchant and his daughter were terrified by the proposal.The moneylender told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into a clean bag. The girl would then have to pick one pebble from the bag. If she selected the black pebble, she would become the moneylender’s partner and her father’s debt would be forgiven. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be pardoned. But if she rejected to pick a pebble, her father would be tossed into jail.

They were positioned on a pebble strewn path in the merchant’s garden. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he chosen them up, the sharp-eyed girl observed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then requested the girl to pick her pebble from the bag.

What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to recommend her, what would you have told her? Careful research would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should reject to take a pebble.

2. The girl should display that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the moneylender as a cheat.

3. The girl should pick a black pebble and compromise herself in order to save her father from his debt and jail time.

The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the distinction between lateral and logical thinking.

The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it drop onto the pebble-strewn path where it instantly turned lost among all the other pebbles........read more at click here