Posted by Luke in 
I went to the Mr Toys Toyworld yesterday to buy a Vmigo for my daughter. She had some money she wanted to spend but she didn’t want to spend it because she really wants a DS lite. She got worked up to the point of tears about having to compromise one over the other. Then as we talked about it she realised she could have both if she was prepared to wait for what she wanted. If she simply waiting a few more months or perhaps up to a year she could get the Vmigo. As I sit here typing this she looks very happy playing with the Vmigo.
The problem was: choose one or the other. When in reality she could have chosen both and not had to compromise one or the other. In academic circles we call this ‘dissolving the problem.’ This is where you take the higher order constraints of the problem and change the conditions that cause the issue to exist. So instead of my daughter having to choose one or the other she came to a higher order conclusion where both were possible. Try this way of thinking in your own life and why not let me know in the forum how it works out.
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[...] This is following the art of problem solving by Russell Ackoff and changing the conditions (or the higher order concepts) to make the situation different so the problem can’t occur. I discussed this a while ago. [...]