“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”.
This quote by famous author and motivational speaker, Wayne Dyer, conveys a very thought-provoking message. A positive attitude and a problem-solving approach help a person move forward in life. Having said that, all of us need to evolve with changing times, reject stereotypes, and adopt modern technology to blend in with the era we are living in. Maybe that is why the phrase “modern problems require modern solutions” has gained immense popularity.
Mentioned below are few hilarious examples of how people tried incorporating this concept in real-life situations.
Joining hands with the competitor
An interesting example is how a female chess player from Iran, Dorsa Derakhshani, turned the tables on her opponents. She was banned from playing for her own national team merely because she chose to take off her hijab. Derakhsani overcame this barrier by joining the American team.
This was a blow for the state authorities given the problematic relations between Iran and the US.
Color coding the unique way
We all have heard stories of police vans chasing vehicles with suspected criminals. However, the Japanese police have adopted a unique yet safe method to identify such cars.
They tend to shoot orange-colored paintballs at cars trying to flee. This makes it easy to spot them from a distance and also to recover them later as orange paint takes time to come off. A hilarious, yet practical example of how modern problems require modern solutions.
Smart dad
Most parents are worried about their children’s addiction to video games. They fear that spending too much time on consoles would deviate their children’s attention from their studies. Unlike most parents who struggle to cope with the generation gap, or repeatedly yell at their kids to get off the screen, a smart dad has applied a modern technique to solve this problem.
He paid professional gamers to beat his son in all the games he religiously played so that he would lose interest in that activity and think about getting a job.
It is debatable whether this act on part of the father should be considered a violation of free will, or a depiction of responsibility towards his son’s future. However, the approach he adopted is surely unique and amusing.
Want to keep on hoarding stuff? Please continue
With every new wave of the pandemic, the problem of consumers hoarding and purchasing more than the required quantity of essential products is a problem that resuscitates. To resolve this issue, a Danish supermarket started charging more than double the amount on the purchase of the second bottle of sanitizer.
The next time you decide to buy a sanitizer in Denmark, do remember that even if the first bottle costs $6, the second bottle can cost you somewhere around $150.
The perfect solution
Most passengers are agitated by the long waiting times at the airport. The Houston Airport, in particular, received numerous complaints from passengers regarding the time it took for their baggage to arrive.
The management at Houston Airport seems to be an adamant follower of the belief that “modern problems require modern solutions”. If you are wondering what leads us to make such a statement, you wouldn’t be able to help but smile upon finding out.
Instead of speeding up the process, they moved the area where passengers collect their baggage, even further so that it would take more time for the passengers to walk there. You would be surprised to know that this caused the number of complaints to decrease significantly.
It’s a tough world
The harsh reality of life is that hunger can make people indulge themselves in unethical activities. Who would willingly want to get arrested for stealing $1? The answer is someone who doesn`t have a place to live in.
According to a news source, a homeless man stole only a dollar from a bank without attempting to disguise his identity. He then waited there till the police could come and arrest him.
It is heart-breaking to find out that this was the only solution he could think of to get free food, accommodation, and health care.
What a brilliant idea!
“If we remain young at heart, do we ever really grow old?”
An elderly couple has recently proved that the above saying is right. Their cruise trip got canceled due to the unexpected lockdown following the COVID-19.
Do you know what they did?
They recreated the entire experience in their living room, in front of a television.
What else was she supposed to do?
While checking in her baggage, a passenger was told by the airline staff that her luggage weighed more than the maximum allowed limit. To avoid paying the charges for excess baggage, what do you think she did?
Adopting a modern approach to solve this common traveling problem, she tried wearing all of her excess clothes that weighed around 2.5 kg.
This story left us speechless. We wonder what your response would be upon reading this piece of information.
The ideal book carrier
A school in Lincolnshire banned students from carrying bags to school. As weird and unusual as it may sound, Spalding Grammar School’s justification for such a practice was that this was an attempt to prevent students from getting hurt.
The humorous incident following the implementation of this rule was that a student brought his textbooks to school in a microwave.
We wonder if it was an act of mischief or retaliation. Whatever be the case, this act on part of the student will surely leave you in fits.
The cursed toilet rolls
Hoarding toilet rolls following the pandemic is a phenomenon that we fail to understand. A store in Japan tried adopting a witty approach to prevent the theft of toilet rolls. They put marks that are associated with a curse in Japanese culture on all the rolls, hence causing people to stay away from the stock. This is yet another example of solving modern day problems with equally smart approaches.
We hope you enjoyed these real-life examples. These stories have reinforced our belief in the concept “modern problems require modern solutions”.