I hope you had a good hardy laugh from last week’s post! This week I’ll share one more humorous story since health experts say laughing is good for us.
This story comes from a book I’m rereading and plan to share with you next week. Tim Hansel’s book, Eating Problems for Breakfast, will provide great wisdom on simple, creative ways to solve any problem.
Tim Hansel says this story “illustrates what can happen when we fail to define our problems properly”.
An English woman looking for a room in Switzerland asked the schoolmaster of the village where she wanted to live to help her. After finding a place that suited her, she returned to London for her baggage. Once there, however, she remembered that she hadn’t asked about a bathroom, or ‘water closet,’ as she called it. So she wrote the village schoolmaster with her question, referring to these facilities in her letter as a “WC.”
The schoolmaster, puzzled by these initials, sought the help of a parish priest. The priest decided the woman must be asking about a wayside chapel.
You can imagine the woman’s confusion when she received the following letter from the schoolmaster:
Dear Madam:
I regret very much the delay in answering your letter. But I now take the pleasure in informing you that a “WC” is located about 9 miles from the house, in the center of a beautiful grove of trees. It is capable of seating 250 people at a time. It is open Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday each week. I admit it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late.
The last time my wife and I went was six years ago. It was so crowded we had to stand the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that there is a supper being planned to raise money to buy more seats. Likewise, it may interest you to know that my daughter met her husband the first time in the “WC,” and they were later married in the “WC.”
I would like to say it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly, but it is surely no lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather. If you should decide to come for a visit, perhaps I could go with you the first time you go, sit with you, and introduce you to all the other folks. Remember, this is a friendly community.
Yours truly The Schoolmaster
As you can see, it pays to define our problems properly! Hopefully, by the time we’ve completed the overview of Hansel’s book, Eating Problems for Breakfast, we’ll have a better understanding of how to properly define problems and be better equipped to simply and creatively solve them!
You can download a free copy of the story above at my website Wisdom-Matters by clicking on the “Free Resources” tab.
NOTE: Please see my full disclosure policy on my usage of Hyper-Links for additional information.
See you next week for more Wisdom-Matters!
"The Fear of the LORD is the Beginning of Wisdom" 