Rubik’s Cube of Life: How analogies can help us understand life and decision making

Whilst on an 8 mile country walk with a good friend and mentor, he raised the notion of life being comparable to a Rubik’s Cube. The deeper we delved in to this discussion, the more detailed the analogy became – and it’s potential expanded from that of a Rubix Cube as a tangible tool in a Life Consultancy workshop, to becoming a full blown book idea on using analogies to impart wisdom…watch this space!

The purpose of this blog is to help people explore creative ways of thinking about seemingly complex issues. It is beyond the scope of this blog to go in to any depth about the distinction between analogies, metaphors and similes - but it’s purpose is to show how these literary devices can serve as powerful tools in helping us understand and simplify the world.

Implementing playful, creative analogies in to our thinking about life allows us to give meaning to the mundane. It allows us to have confidence in our decisions. It allows us to feel empowered to make and change decisions. It allows us to avoid the ‘compare and despair’ epidemic, ubiquitous in contemporary culture.

A condensed version of our discussion went as follows:

1. Imagine life at the point of birth as a brand new, orderly Rubik’s Cube

1. Life / Rubik’s Cube has many faces

2. Life / Rubik’s Cube has many colours

3. Life / Rubik’s Cube has many choices

4. Imagine ten people are given the brand new, orderly Rubik’s Cube and asked to take ten turns of the cube in whichever way they choose

5. Do you think any of the cubes would match?

6. Imagine one hundred people, or one thousand people or one million people completing this task

7. Do you think any of the cubes would match?

The point of this is to demonstrate the infinite options and choices we all have as individuals. These choices are given to us as a gift at the point life begins.

We all enter the world in the same way, but the possibilities for how we live in this world are infinite. In our life time, we make decision after decision, we turn the Rubik’s Cube again and again. We can choose to go back if we wish to. We always have the possibility of making another turn. Why strive to make the colours match up? Why not stop and appreciate the mix of the colours? After all, once we have ‘solved’ the puzzle, what is left to explore?

[Note: Some of the philosophically minded among you may notice the slight similarities of this idea with the Epicurean Hypothesis - which explores the notion of order in the world as a necessary contingent of an infinite universe. Often the analogy of monkeys on typewriters is used to explain this concept…more on this favourite concept of mine at a later date…]