My younger brother recently gave a subscription for “Highlights” magazine to his grandson. For the uninitiated, Highlights caters to imaginative and creative activities, including the “hidden pictures” page, always my favorite when I was a young kid (and probably long after).
There is something about finding an item that gets your thinking going and engages you. You want to dig in. You’re curious.
Facebook knows about this. You find puzzles frequently posted, asking you to find the hidden letter in a field of “X’s.” Or, there is a field screen shot covered in the number “3,” and somewhere in there is the number “8,” and they ask if you can find it under 30 seconds.
These posts find an audience. People publish the time it took them to find the hidden item or how difficult it was or how the number never activated their consciousness.
It’s good that people continue to discover. Whether it’s through puzzles or new hobbies, taking up something that gets your mind solving a riddle is a good thing.
With the new year, and people making resolutions and setting goals, I think it’s nice if we maybe move away from structuring the specifics, and instead look at the more generic things that keep us growing, learning, becoming more rounded as a human being.
Hidden pictures in Highlights magazine or other types of puzzles are not going to solve the world’s problems. They’re not going to get you a better job, not going to turn you into a nuclear scientist. But, I believe they do add to your repertoire of development and help you step away from some of the issues of the day that could be bothering you and allow a tiny bit of time to decompress and look at things differently.
I play two word games every morning: Wordl and Waffle. It’s possible you play them as well. Perhaps you play Sudoku or dabble in the New York Times crossword puzzle. Regardless, what you gain is a shot of adrenaline and a sense of accomplishment in solving something – put something together, complete a picture, figure out a riddle.
This pumps you up to start the day (or give you a respite during a stressful or boring period later in your day). It doesn’t matter necessarily when you decide to push yourself. The result is a refresher, a sense of accomplishment and slight thrill that you figured something out, sometimes more quickly than you thought you could.
There’s a lot to be said for challenging yourself. We all do that in certain ways, every day. Small or big, we take on tasks, figure out how to resolve an equation.
This past weekend, a friend of our son’s was describing how she felt uncomfortable in her job, almost like she was a fake, because she didn’t feel she knew what she was doing. I mentioned to her that is the nature of many jobs, and the challenge – you “don’t” know what’s going on, but you’re paid to figure it out. That’s fun.
It’s awesome to me that Highlights magazine is still around, doing their thing. It gives me hope for the world. And, it gives me hope for the next generation that my brother gave a subscription to his grandson. May he forever look forward to finding those hidden pictures. Someday, he can send me a subscription, too, so I can stay up-to-speed on finding things that can easily prove elusive.
There is something about finding an item that gets your thinking going and engages you. You want to dig in. You’re curious.
Facebook knows about this. You find puzzles frequently posted, asking you to find the hidden letter in a field of “X’s.” Or, there is a field screen shot covered in the number “3,” and somewhere in there is the number “8,” and they ask if you can find it under 30 seconds.
These posts find an audience. People publish the time it took them to find the hidden item or how difficult it was or how the number never activated their consciousness.
It’s good that people continue to discover. Whether it’s through puzzles or new hobbies, taking up something that gets your mind solving a riddle is a good thing.
With the new year, and people making resolutions and setting goals, I think it’s nice if we maybe move away from structuring the specifics, and instead look at the more generic things that keep us growing, learning, becoming more rounded as a human being.
Hidden pictures in Highlights magazine or other types of puzzles are not going to solve the world’s problems. They’re not going to get you a better job, not going to turn you into a nuclear scientist. But, I believe they do add to your repertoire of development and help you step away from some of the issues of the day that could be bothering you and allow a tiny bit of time to decompress and look at things differently.
I play two word games every morning: Wordl and Waffle. It’s possible you play them as well. Perhaps you play Sudoku or dabble in the New York Times crossword puzzle. Regardless, what you gain is a shot of adrenaline and a sense of accomplishment in solving something – put something together, complete a picture, figure out a riddle.
This pumps you up to start the day (or give you a respite during a stressful or boring period later in your day). It doesn’t matter necessarily when you decide to push yourself. The result is a refresher, a sense of accomplishment and slight thrill that you figured something out, sometimes more quickly than you thought you could.
There’s a lot to be said for challenging yourself. We all do that in certain ways, every day. Small or big, we take on tasks, figure out how to resolve an equation.
This past weekend, a friend of our son’s was describing how she felt uncomfortable in her job, almost like she was a fake, because she didn’t feel she knew what she was doing. I mentioned to her that is the nature of many jobs, and the challenge – you “don’t” know what’s going on, but you’re paid to figure it out. That’s fun.
It’s awesome to me that Highlights magazine is still around, doing their thing. It gives me hope for the world. And, it gives me hope for the next generation that my brother gave a subscription to his grandson. May he forever look forward to finding those hidden pictures. Someday, he can send me a subscription, too, so I can stay up-to-speed on finding things that can easily prove elusive.