Flexibility

**Thinking Flexibly (4)**

 * Can you consider alternate ideas? Can you deal with more than one solution simultaneously? Is YOUR way of solving something the ONLY way? If you never change your mind, why have one? De Bono**

Further Explanation:

Thinking flexibly means that I should be opened to changes, willing to make those changes, and see the results as also valid. In the recent chemistry lab of chapter 2, I demonstrated the ability to "fold" my mind: when our group's experiment didn't work for the first time, we quickly alter the experiment in order to get visible result. For the lab, I was grouped with Alex Zhang and Jae Kyun Kim which together, we decided to dissolve silver in different concentrations of nitric acid. However we found some trouble after we began the experiment: the silver piece didn't dissolve in the nitric acid, or more precisely, it didn't dissolve fast enough for us to get a result immediately. Thus we switched off the main character silver and let magnesium takes its lead. That was a good choice :) Magnesium started to bubble in the nitric acid concentrations soon after we put it in.

The photo above is an unrevised copy of our chemistry lab, which was written under the presumption that silver would work.

Through this habit of mind I learn that flexibility is very important for people to get a successful result. In the chemistry lab if we didn’t alter the lab half way through, we might still be standing beside the fume hood waiting for silver to dissolve 1mm after soaking in nitric acid for 5 days. Yes, some result would definitely show, but it takes too long and the result is too insignificant. This flexibility in mind doesn’t only apply to science lab, but also apply to daily decisions. In our life, flexibility will definitely help us reach our goal faster and easier. It also allows us to make friends when we are willing to sit down and listen to what other people have and reasonably consider the eligibility of other’s ideas.