Genius and Ingenio

- Who changes new lamps for old ones? - I was screaming.

The princess on the balcony offered the old Aladdin's lamp to the old man.

The story is so well known that hardly anyone does not recall a blue character floating at the end of the lamp, with a servile gesture to offer whimsical requests to anyone who possessed the artifact and without any effort in return. A stroke of luck led Aladino to have what he wanted, considering as representative elements of success: money, food, a girl, the ability to get out of complex problems and the cliché of being happy forever.

In practice, happiness is a decision (not a condition) that does not necessarily have to do with the things that Aladdin acquired. Although unhappiness is a condition - And very common in the world- in most cases because of not having reached the requirements of the same list.

We are therefore aware that there is no genius of the lamp, but many Aladdin with a trinket in his hand looking for a chance. Except for those who spend their money on lottery tickets, what we have is an attitude towards life, which, complemented by born gifts and acquired skills, make us succeed.

This is usually called ingenuity, synonymous with creativity and which paradoxically resembles the word genius, although it has nothing to do with these mythological goblins or the creatures of chapter 15 of the Koran. Wit has to do with the abilities Aladdin would have had to use had he not encountered the genie. Among these we can mention:

The inventive.

Richard Stallman He was in trouble when he released a comment, saying that the best thing for Harvard students was to do a first year and then retire to create their own businesses, they had already demonstrated their ability to have been admitted. But Stallman did not mean to say that university studies are unnecessary, perhaps his intention was to show that this world requires that highly inventive people should not hide behind a desk in a world that has its days numbered unless ideas are developed outside of the conventional.

Often our intentions to change the way we do things collide with advisers who for twenty-five years have done things the same way. Locked in a reduced context, they create absurd ideas from new generations, forgetting that the best inventive contributions often came from people who were not experts in the field, who tolerant of ambiguity apparently aimed at the absurd.

The experience.

We tend to forget that our second salary is the knowledge we are acquiring in our current job, so we are refusing to collect it as it should be. Sometimes you even have to tolerate a complicated boss so that the position, stability or institution will later represent on our resume.

The knowledge accumulated in raising children, growing a family business, serving others in a church or volunteer instance brings results sooner or later. Whether or not it is recognized by all as a synonym for success, well-earned experience is a determining factor in human survival.

The discipline.  No idea will be successful without systematic insistence on finishing the things that are started. It is necessary to follow gaps that have been succeeded by others as shortcuts, but given the diversity of situations it will be necessary tenacity to try again, again and again until the solution to the problems is found.

To think that Aladdin could have come up with a lamp that didn't have a genie inside it seems like a difficult task. And precisely for this reason ingenuity requires a great effort to make a sketch of a paper napkin effective; but most of the things we use now were the product of internal questioning from someone who thought of new ways of doing things and discipline to find end results.

In conclusion, regardless of the resources we have or our intellectual capacity, a positive attitude towards life is required. We don't necessarily have to hide in a lab to find a new light bulb or practical applications to Tesla's theories; But it is necessary to bring out the imagination to find new ways to get ahead, to maintain better relationships with our loved ones and with ourselves.

What you are doing could be improved with a pinch of more creativity?