Your brain is working on it without you

I don’t know how to crochet. But there’s no reason I can’t learn. (Image by congerdesign)

I enjoy puzzles of all kinds, from Sudoku to crosswords to old-fashioned jigsaw puzzles.

What I appreciate most about them is the way they illuminate the unfathomable complexities of the mind.

Specifically, they show me how much is happening in my brain without my conscious awareness.

So often, I return to a puzzle only to spot within seconds an answer that had eluded me after a half hour of staring and seeing nothing. I’ve even had the experience of walking by a jigsaw puzzle in progress, picking up a random piece, and putting it where it goes on the first try.

It feels like magic; what’s even more incredible is that it’s not. It’s simply the result of the way the human brain makes sense of the world, collecting our perceptions, filtering and filing them, and making connections.

I didn’t understand this in high school. I didn’t know that the best way to solve a difficult geometry proof was to take a shower or a walk. I didn’t see that short bursts of studying over a period of days were more effective than one long marathon session.

And I didn’t know that if you try something and appear to be making no progress, the thing to do is try again tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and the one after that. Even when everyone else seems to be getting it so easily and you don’t know how you’re going to catch up, you can make it happen.

Doing puzzles helps me to practice and trust this process. The puzzles teach me that my effort will pay off in unexpected ways if I simply persist, taking breaks when I get stuck and then getting back into it when I feel refreshed. This is a useful lesson that I can apply to the real-life problems and puzzles I encounter.

When we think that we have to consciously manage the whole process — that we must somehow predict, from the start, the path through which we will arrive at the answer — we get demoralized and frustrated. We’re not making space for the work our brain will do on our behalf. When we don’t see how we’re going to get where we want to go, we might even quit. That would be a mistake.

If we stick with whatever we’re trying to accomplish, we will see that we don’t have to know in the beginning how it’s all going to turn out. We don’t have to know how we’re going to find a solution — we just have to trust that we will. We just have to keep showing up. Our subconscious mind will keep working on the problem, even when we’re sleeping. It will review the new inputs, go over freshly learned skills, and figure stuff out.

One of these days, you will accomplish your goal, and it will feel easy. The answer will come out of nowhere. The skill will suddenly reach a new level of refinement. I hope you didn’t drive yourself crazy trying to force it. All you had to do was keep going. Your brain was working on it without you the whole time.