Six Life Lessons Learned from Solving Crossword Puzzles

I’m not talking about easy or medium puzzles here, although it is important to recognize your skill level. But after a while, wouldn’t it feel great to advance to a higher level?

I’m not the dimmest bulb on the shelf, but neither am I writing as a genius with snappy logic and a great memory. I’m 77, so the gray matter is getting spongy, and I find myself struggling to recall words I know that I should have on the tip of my tongue, but that in itself is a great reason for doing crosswords. It keeps your vocabulary refreshed, exercises the brain. introduces the puzzler to new cultural situations, and teaches exotic geography to those who have never heard of the Ural Mountain Range.

So how does this old fogie, or should I say foguette, solve puzzle after puzzle from the Washington Post or the New York Times? Here are a few tips.

1]  Pay attention to the theme of the puzzle. There is often a gimmick, a pun reached by substituting one or more letters. Once you catch the drift, it’s like being given a key to resolve other longer answers.

It reminds me of the old axiom, “If someone tells you who they are, believe them.” Crosswords also force one to think outside their usual mental channels, rattle the brain a bit, climb out of the box, think of all the ways to rearrange that word or phrase.

2]  Use your smart phone. Cheating? Nope. The puzzle makers look up random facts out of an encyclopedia or Atlas, put them into a huge data base, then use a computer algorithm to make the puzzle. Well, there’s more to it than that, because the puzzle authors are pretty clever, but no one can expect the solver to know the thousands of exotic factoids that make up the answers. You can’t possibly know all the movies made in 1948, all the horses that won the Kentucky Derby, all the rivers that flow into the Seine.

Clever you will develop the skill of Googling, of asking the right question in the right way, the right number of times until those frustrating sites promoting palm trees finally tell you that you’re looking for a “raffia” palm.

You’re a researcher, a decoder, a detective, you’re a person with a pocket-sized computer in your hand, a super power at your fingertips. You’ll feel much more intelligent than you probably really are, but you’ll eventually learn to be a search engine genius.

3]  I hate to admit this, but it really helps to be over 65 years old. For one thing, you’ll have more time to do puzzles and games.

In addition, many of the clues or answers are phrases that our grandparents used. One clue was “Not agin.” Us older folks will recall Gabby Hayes saying something to Hopalong Cassidy like, “Well, they’s agin it, but I’m fer it,” so the answer is “fer.” “Curly’s pal” of course is “Moe” from The Three Stooges. Just realize that our senior citizens are not all demented, they just have a lot of New Year celebrations behind them. Our brains are like large, dusty attics stuffed with a lifetime of goods and memorabilia.

4]  Take a break. I can’t quantify the number of times when I was stuck on a corner of the puzzle or a particular word, thinking I was hopelessly stuck. I shut the puzzle down and came back hours later or the next day when I felt energized, and suddenly the words fell into place. This is a lesson that can reach across all aspects of life, including professional situations.

For instance, in one of my blog posts, Richard Eby, Jr. tells the tale of his father, Eby, Sr. who was in charge of finding a ceramic-like material that could withstand thousands of volts of electricity. Boulder dam (later Hoover) was being built, but bushings were needed to pass the electric power to the rest of America. Four labs were unable to find a substance that wouldn’t explode under the pressure. Eby felt God’s guidance kick in and knew the answer was coming, so he closed down all departments for a month and encouraged everyone to go on vacation. You can read how that month long break led to the answer of the bushing problem here. That narrative came from Dr. Eby Jr.'s book Caught up into Paradise, 1978, and I wrote about that here.

“Let’s sleep on it,” the old axiom suggests. I have gone to bed with a major problem and have awakened the next morning knowing exactly how to solve it. Adding prayer to the search for solutions increases the chances of success ten-fold.

5]  And that is, in fact, lesson 5. Pray for solutions. I know that seems like a silly use of prayer, but when I’m stuck on any kind of puzzle, in life or on paper, I pray for help and am often astonished at how the solution presents itself. Yes, I have to apply whatever gifts of logic and common sense I have left in this old frame, but I can almost feel the boost I get from asking for help, and it always surprises me.

So, is it trivial to pray about a crossword puzzle? Maybe, but if I were, let’s say, working in the intelligence community trying to break codes, solve crimes, understand what game a foreign power is playing, you would use the same skills. As in the case of Richard Eby, Sr., something as important as national security could depend on it.

6]  Last but not least, be persistent. Don’t give up. I often take days to solve my crosswords. That makes it more fun.

Jesus gave us a parable in the Gospel of Luke 18:1–8 in which a widow approaches a worldly judge multiple times looking for justice against an adversary. The judge isn’t really interested in resolving her issue, but he does it because he knows she won’t stop and she’ll drive him crazy until she gets justice.

Jesus told his followers, be like that woman, because God actually cares about your problems so success is much more likely. However, don’t expect immediate results. The parable tells us that God will avenge us “speedily.” OK, well, um, anyone that knows what it’s like to walk with God knows that clocks in heaven are set to a different cosmic time differential, and when God says “soon” or “speedily” you just have to take it with a grain of salt. Wait, did I say clocks? There are no clocks in heaven.

Don’t give up on resolving your life snarls, and I’m not just talking about games. The 6 life lessons above can apply to broken families, national crises, scientific research, environmental management, or any problem that we humans encounter. Expect life difficulties to be tough to solve, expect to be discouraged, expect it to take time and patience, but keep at it in hope that help is on the way in one form or another.

This essay can also be found at Medium:  Six Life Lessons Learned from Doing Crossword Puzzles