I've always wondered about that, actually.I remember hearing that phrase as a child and of course, taking it literally. I spent hours, or at least what felt like hours, puzzling over it. I didn't really have handy holes for experiments but I did have building blocks and I remember sitting on the floor of the room I shared with my younger brother, holding one of those square blocks, turning it over and over in my hands and trying to figure out why it wouldn't fit into a round hole. My thought being, if the hole was big enough to fit around the four corners, why can't it be done?
I don't think I ever resolved the conundrum then and I was too embarrassed by my inability to understand it to ask someone for an explanation. Years have passed and I haven't thought about that phrase until it suddenly popped into my head tonight.
I'm having trouble falling asleep and anyone who knows me will know just how unlike me that is. I lied in bed until I just couldn't take it anymore and then I got up, curled up on the couch and just as I was turning on the TV to whatever inanity happens to be on around midnight on a Friday night, it was as if someone whispered in my ear, "You can't force a square peg into a round hole".
If I were inclined to flights of fancy (which I often am), I would say that it was my subconscious offering an explanation for my frustration and stress. But at what point does having expectations and have them go unfulfilled morphs into trying to force something into a place it was never meant to go?
I never found the answer to the original puzzle and now I find myself in exactly the same situation... twirling the pieces in my hands and with no one to ask for answers.
