Peter gets Puzzled

Part of my homework for my MBSR class was to solve a simple looking puzzle. Let me first say that I hate puzzles and have always hated puzzles. I hated those puzzles with the little slidey squares where you had to make a picture or put the alphabet in order. I have never "solved" the Rubics Cube - although my mom thought I did only after I took all the stickers off and replaced them. Don't do crosswords. Sudoko? I had to Google it to even get the spelling right. The thought of even seeing a jigsaw puzzle spread-out on a table makes my blood pressure rise, although Madamerouge finds nothing more relaxing than sitting down with a good strong cup of tea and one of his favourite puzzles. I guess this says a lot about me, and I imagine not all positive.

Anyway, the task of solving the puzzle was something that caused me a lot of anxiety. This stemmed from the fact that I found it harder ( a lot!) than I thought I would and that it took me much longer to solve than I had expected it to. It was a frustrating experience, and there is an important lesson in that itself. It's a pretty famous puzzle so you may have already seen it and completed it in mere seconds. Here it is:


Connect all nine dots below without lifting your pen from the paper and using a maximum of four straight lines:



If you are as impatient and easily frustrated as I am, the solution is here