Einstein, a Little Birdy, and Personal Creativity by Dr. Bob Weathers

Albert Einstein once observed: “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”  Last evening I had a first-hand experience of this truth…

I was staying at a good friend’s house.  I opened the back door (to head to her Jacuzzi), only to have a little sparrow fly directly into the house.

Once I regained my wits, I immediately went about the task of shooing the little bird back outside, where it belonged.  But it had different plans!

After an hour or so of my trying everything under heaven --- first using my arms, then a big towel, then both towel and broom --- I finally rested into the realization that I needed to rethink the whole endeavor.

I sat down, and began to try to imagine into what this little bird might be “thinking” (I’m not sure if birds this small actually think!).  It came to me: I keep coming at the bird from below, so it retreats up high on the ceiling, finding places to perch way up there.

How about if I get up to its level, and shoo it downward?

Within a minute the bird flew down (rather than constantly up), and right out the door through which it had entered.

Lessons here?

It probably doesn’t help much to keep trying the same, ineffective strategy over and over.  (See Einstein above.)

Empathy works.

And: taking a break from all the hub-hub is good for both bird and Bobby.  (Ever the neuropsychologist: I imagined the hapless bird’s limbic system, specifically its amygdala, to be on overdrive with all this stimulation; much less its mirror neurons reflecting back my own increasing frustration and agitation!)

What would it be like in life if we took a moment to reflect empathically on any interpersonal (or inter-species!) situation before moving instantly into (ineffective) action?  Plus, to give ourselves a little break from stress by simply chilling?

Thanks, little birdy, for teaching me some Einstein today!