The Danger of an Agitated Mind

-Karthik Gurumurthy

We’ve all been there—moments when tension grips us so tightly that our blood pressure spikes and our thoughts spiral. Often, these moments of extreme stress come from surprisingly trivial things. Let me share two stories that illustrate just how much anxiety can blind us to simple solutions.

The Professor’s Farewell

A professor was transferring to another university, and his colleagues gathered at the train station to see him off. They were having such an engaging conversation that nobody noticed the train beginning to pull away.

Suddenly realizing what was happening, they panicked. In a flurry of confusion, all the colleagues rushed forward and jumped onto the moving train, planning to find the correct compartment at the next station.

But here’s the problem: the professor—the very person who was supposed to be boarding—stood frozen on the platform, luggage still in hand, watching his colleagues disappear down the tracks.

A passerby, seeing the professor’s distressed face, tried to comfort him: “Don’t worry, sir. Another train will arrive in just ten minutes.”

The professor looked at him and said, “You don’t understand. Those people came to see me off—but they’re the ones who ended up on the train!”

This absurd situation perfectly captures what happens when agitation takes over. No matter how frantically we act or how much effort we put in, panic blinds our judgment. The harder we work in that state, the more likely we are to accomplish absolutely nothing—or worse, to do the exact opposite of what we intended.

The King’s Test

A king needed to appoint a minister but faced a dilemma: he had four candidates with identical qualifications. Unable to choose based on credentials alone, he decided to create a test.

Summoning all four men, the king announced: “I have commissioned a special lock—a scientific marvel designed using advanced mathematical principles. Tomorrow morning, each of you will have an opportunity to open this lock. Whoever succeeds in opening it in the shortest time will become the minister of this kingdom.”

The stakes were high, and the candidates knew it.

That night, three of the men stayed awake until dawn, poring over ancient texts about locks, studying mathematical formulas and mechanical designs, filling notebooks with calculations and theories. They were determined to crack the code.

The fourth candidate took a different approach. He glanced at a few reference materials, thought quietly for a while, and then went to bed.

The next morning in the king’s court, the ornate mathematical lock was presented. The three sleep-deprived candidates approached it one by one, armed with their extensive notes. They examined the mechanism carefully, applied their formulas, attempted various techniques based on their all-night research. Despite their expertise and preparation, none could open it.

Finally, the fourth man—the one who’d slept peacefully—stepped forward. He was relaxed, clear-headed, well-rested.

He inspected the lock calmly and methodically. And then, to everyone’s amazement, he simply reached out and removed the hook.

The lock hadn’t been locked at all.

The king immediately appointed him as minister.

The three anxious candidates, so consumed by the complexity of the challenge and so stressed about solving it, had never even bothered to check the most basic thing: whether the lock was actually engaged in the first place. Their anxiety had made them overthink a simple situation and miss an obvious solution.

The Lesson

These stories teach us something profound about problem-solving and life: before you can solve a problem, you must first understand the problem. And before you can truly understand the problem, your mind must be calm.

Tension doesn’t make you sharper—it makes you blind. Agitation doesn’t speed up solutions—it paralyzes clear thinking. Anxiety convinces you that everything is more complicated than it actually is.

When your mind is peaceful and composed, you see what’s actually there. You notice what others miss. You find simple solutions to problems that seem impossible.

The next time you face a challenge and feel your stress levels rising, remember the professor’s colleagues boarding the wrong train and the anxious candidates who couldn’t see an unlocked lock.

Take a breath. Calm your mind. Look at the situation clearly.

Sometimes the solution is simpler than you think. But you’ll never see it through the fog of anxiety.