There’s an old tale about ingenuity from the northern hills of 18th century Italy:

An old man ran a local village grocery with his young, beautiful daughter -- but a rash of bad luck and big debts put the old man at the mercy of a crusty, ill-intentioned loan shark. One day, the loan shark came to collect his debts -- and offered the grocer a deal.

The deal was as follows: the loan-shark announced he would place two pebbles into a bag, one black, one white.

The daughter would pick a pebble from the bag:
A white pebble, and the debt would be forgiven, no questions asked.
A black pebble, however, said the debt would be forgiven, only the daughter would have to marry the loan shark. 

On a black-and-white pebble-strewn path at the center of their village, the loan shark bent down and picked up two pebbles --

But the daughter noticed his deceit - as the cunning shark picked up two black pebbles and placed them into the bag. 

As such, the daughter appeared to have three options

1. Refuse to pick.
2. Take out both pebbles and expose the loan-shark’s fraud
3. Pick a pebble and marry the loan-shark

Instead, the daughter reached her hand into the bag - slowly pulled out her pebble, and stumbled - accidently - fumbling the pebble she chose to the ground.

“Oh. how clumsy of me,” she said sheepishly. “Well, surely we can still make a decision - look into the bag to see what pebble is left, and you’ll know which pebble I chose.”

Of course, the remaining pebble was black - and the loan shark - so not to ruin his already tarnished reputation in the village - was forced to play along.

And the debt was wiped clean.

So what can we learn from the daughter?

Always have your eyes open - the more we stay attuned to the world around us, the more we can make qualified choices, for ourselves and for others.

We have options - sometimes we need a trusted friend or companion to point out possibilities that we can’t see. Or need to write a pro’s and con’s list to see our truth. But our options are quite often only as limited as our ideas about what we believe our choices are.

And last but not least - Trust yourself - and practice being creative! We’re resourceful creatures. Sometimes, we simply need to remember our capacity for creativity - and seize opportunities, and look outside of the box - or pebble bag - for our answers.