I want you to grab a mental piece of paper—or a real one if you have it handy. Draw three rows of three dots. So, it looks like a nice, neat little square grid. Nine dots in total.
Here is your mission: Connect all nine dots using only four straight lines. But, there are two rules that make this infuriating. First, you cannot lift your pen off the paper once you start. Second, you cannot retrace a line you’ve already drawn. You have to do it in one continuous flow. Go ahead, try to visualize it. Most people start drawing a box around the edge, but that leaves the middle dot. Or they go through the middle, but leave a corner. It feels impossible, doesn’t it?
This is Tease Your Brain from English Plus Podcast. Never Stop Learning.
This puzzle is actually the origin of the famous business cliché “think outside the box.” Why? Because if you look at those nine dots, your brain automatically draws a boundary around them. You see a square. Your brain tells you, “I must keep my lines inside this square area.”
But I never gave you that rule. I never said the lines had to stay within the dots.
Here is the solution: Start at the top-left dot. Draw a line diagonally down to the bottom-right dot. That’s line one. You’ve connected three dots.
Now, draw a line straight up, through the right-side column. But—and here is the secret—don’t stop at the top-right dot. Extend your line past the dots, about an inch higher into the empty white space. That is line two.
Now, from that imaginary point in the empty space, draw a diagonal line going down and left. You will slice through the top-middle dot and the left-middle dot. Again, don’t stop! Go past the left edge of the square. That is line three.
Finally, draw a straight line to the right. You will catch the bottom-left, bottom-middle, and bottom-right dots. That is line four. All dots connected.
The reason this puzzle stumps us is a psychological phenomenon called “imaginary constraints.” We create rules that don’t exist because we like order. We like borders. We assume limits that aren’t there. Solving this requires you to physically and mentally trespass into the blank space where “nothing” exists.
This applies to so much more than dots on a page. We assume we can’t apply for that job, or learn that instrument, or change our career because of rules we invented in our own heads.
So, I have to ask: What is an “imaginary constraint” you’ve placed on yourself recently? Is there a box you’re stuck in that doesn’t actually exist? Let’s talk about breaking boundaries in the comments.
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