There’s a famous puzzle that presents a logical contradiction.
It states a woman was born in 1975 and died in 1975, yet lived to be 22.
Your brain likely stutters for a second.
This is a cognitive bias in action.
The riddle is a brilliant example of how our minds love to take shortcuts.
The number 1975 is overwhelmingly associated with a calendar year.
That’s the context we immediately and unconsciously apply.
We get stuck because we are fighting our own ingrained patterns.
The puzzle isn’t difficult due to a lack of intelligence.
It’s difficult because it requires overcoming an automatic process.
Such riddles are more than just fun games.
They are tiny exercises in cognitive flexibility.
They train us to challenge our first impressions.
We learn to question the obvious.
The answer involves shifting our entire frame.
1975 was not the year.
It was the number on a hospital room door.
She was born in that room.
She passed away there over two decades later.
The lesson is profound.
The key to a stubborn problem isn’t to push harder on the same door.
It’s to check if you’re in the right building.
