Focusing On an Algebra Problem

 

Focusing On an Algebra Problem

My first real experience with mental focusing was with an algebra problem that I confronted. I had taken pre-algebra in the eighth grade and was a few weeks into ninth grade algebra when the teacher called our attention to a particular problem in the textbook. "If any of you can work that problem," she said, "I will give you an extra A on your test record. I have never had more than one student in a class that could solve it." With that announcement she glanced meaningfully at a boy named Clay, who had been the star of her pre-algebra class. My ego would not let that pass. If Clay did solve that problem, this would be the first year that she would get two solutions.

At that time our cooking range was a woodstove placed diagonally across one corner of the kitchen, so that there was a triangular space behind the stove and between the two walls that met at the corner. This small, warm cubbyhole was one of my favorite hiding places. I would sneak in there when no one was looking, and later, when everyone had left the kitchen, I would magically appear. I had been trying to solve that algebra problem for about an hour when I finally took refuge in this secret lair to keep from being interrupted. But my mother was preparing dinner, and some little noise from a kettle lid or a kitchen utensil would break my concentration just when I thought I was on the verge of cracking the problem. I would relax for a while, then try again, get almost there, and it would slip away from me. But finally, I managed to hold on long enough, solved it, checked to make sure my answer satisfied all the conditions, and then appeared out of thin air when my parents called me to dinner.

The next day, the Algebra teacher began the class by asking if anyone had solved that problem. She looked at Clay. Clay looked out the window. When I raised my hand, she looked skeptical, but told me to write my solution on the blackboard. When I had finished copying the steps one by one from my paper, she stared at the blackboard for a long time. Then she quietly admitted, "That's right. It's not the way I do that problem, but it is right"; and she dutifully entered my A in her grade book.

The lesson I learned from that experience was not that I was smarter than Clay. It may well be that Clay was actually smarter than I. But he didn't have the motivation to hang in there and wrestle with the problem the way that Jacob wrestled with the angel. The lesson that I learned was the power of focused thought.

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