Different minds, Different paths

In most anything to do with thinking, my eldest son and I aren’t in the same league.

For now. In 25 years, if I’m still living, we might be a lot closer.

Even so, every so often, he solves some problem better than I can.

It’s not only the near-savant visual processing abilities that help him find his (frequently) lost brother. Nor his exceptional navigation skills that have corrected my driving since he was about 3 years old. He also has an unusual ability to come up with good solutions to sequencing/routing traveling salesman type problems. That might be why, when he’s in the mood, he’s very good at the game ThinkFun RushHour (traffic jam).

I was reminded of that this morning on the way to work. We were chatting about how we’d manage some family routing issues on the way to work, and, seemingly without effort, he gave me the answer I’d missed.

So my challenge, as ever, is to figure out how he can leverage what he’s good at, while managing the things he can’t do. Being the best he can be …