Life is like a puzzle

You may not like puzzles or reading. But I know that SOMEONE will relate to this allegory. I hope you take the time to read it. I am not a fantastic writer by any means, but wanted to share with you my feelings.

THE MISSING PUZZLE PIECE

I feel like my life is like putting together a puzzle. Not one of those 100 piece puzzles that can be completed in an afternoon; but a legitimate 1000 piece puzzle. You clear off your kitchen table to begin working on the puzzle. The pieces are scattered about the surface and they’re all face up at this point just waiting to find their little puzzle piece neighbors. After weeks and weeks of work the puzzle is coming together. The puzzle is almost complete, and pretty much resembles the picture on the box sitting next to the table. You’ve worked tremendously hard to get to the point where you are at. Many hours have been spent finding the pieces and where they fit in the big picture. Seemingly every facet of the puzzle has been completed. As you put in the last few pieces, you come to a startling realization. There’s a missing piece. The last puzzle piece that will make everything complete and whole is nowhere to be found. Most people working on a regular puzzle and missing an ordinary piece wouldn’t mind all that much. They might say, “So I’m missing one little piece of my puzzle. Who cares?” But this puzzle is not regular or ordinary. And this piece happens to be the most important piece of the puzzle. You’ve spent weeks configuring the puzzle, you’ve cleared off your kitchen table, and you’ve placed the box that the puzzle came in on your kitchen counter. You’ve invested hours upon hours of time into this puzzle. You can’t just say, “Oh well, who cares. I can live without that puzzle piece. I can display this puzzle with that gap in it.” Saying or even thinking that is not an option. In fact, the entire point of a puzzle is to complete it fully, so that it is whole. Indeed, if you had known that a piece from the puzzle was lost entirely and would never be found, you wouldn’t have started the puzzle in the first place. You wouldn’t have made a mess in your kitchen or invested hour after hour on this puzzle because there wouldn’t have been a purpose. That’s how important the puzzle and especially that specific piece is to you.

A week passes and the puzzle still looks exactly the same. Over the past week you went a couple days without even thinking about the missing piece. Other days you obsessed over it. There seemed to be nothing else that could occupy your mind. As time goes on you find that you’re thinking about the puzzle and the missing piece more and more. And one day you decide that you’re going to look for it. Fortunately, the puzzle was brand new and unopened when you started on your journey, so it couldn’t have gone very far. “I have time this week, but I’ll wait till next week before I start looking for the missing piece.” I guess it’s just easier not to apply yourself and actually take the time and effort to search for the missing piece. For the rest of the week you feel like crap, but you still put off looking for the missing puzzle piece.

Next week finally arrives, and you’re determined to find the piece. Over the past week you’ve imagined every scenario of how you’ll come across the piece, and every time that you envisioned that moment you felt ecstasy and bliss. Now was the time to do the dirty work. You didn’t have the slightest idea of how to go about looking or even where to start. Even the thought of getting on your hands and knees and crawling around the whole house seemed daunting and was discouraging. “Maybe I just shouldn’t even try,” you thought as you stared blankly at the almost completed puzzle. Although, at this point, you didn’t view the puzzle as “almost completed” or “so close to done.” Instead, you focused so heavily on the missing piece. In fact, your view of the puzzle evolved over time. When you first recognized that there was a missing piece, you saw the puzzle as “practically done.” There was JUST one piece to go, and everything will be complete. You were still elated about what you had accomplished up to that point. All those weeks and you were ALMOST THERE!! Soon thereafter the missing piece started nagging at you. You gradually forgot how much you had worked to get to that point, and even overlooked how much you had achieved up to that point.

And just before you started looking for the piece you didn’t see the jigsaw as 99% complete (in reality, it was technically 99.9% complete), but it was 1% not done, and you saw the time that had passed between the 2^nd to the last piece being securely in its rightful place and now as completely unacceptable and frustrating.

You decide to think for a little while and weigh your options. After much thought, you realize there really are only three choices, and each has its consequences. You can give up and throw the puzzle away now. This action would be drastic, and sadly, there would be no going back. As soon as the puzzle is in the trash, it’s gone forever. Quite frankly, as soon as you BEGIN dismantling the puzzle, the choice has been made. Surely you’re not going to restart the puzzle all over again. Option #2 was to explore around the house until you find the missing piece. This may take minutes, hours, days, or weeks. But you won’t stop until you find it. There is even a small chance the piece is gone forever. Perhaps it was swept up and thrown in the trash weeks ago. However, there wouldn’t be any way to know until you started looking. Option #3 was to scour the house for the piece for a certain amount of time. If by that time you didn’t find it, you would give up and throw the puzzle away. This seemed a little more attractive than option #1 because you didn’t come across as a quitter or wimp, but would actually apply yourself to find what you wanted so badly.

After much thought you choose to look for the puzzle piece. You set a tentative deadline, and if you reach the deadline without finding the piece, you will throw the puzzle away. Sadly, soon after you make this choice you find out that your best friend opted to throw away his puzzle before completing it. This was devastating to everyone that knew him and saw his puzzle. After some investigation you realize he had an absolutely gorgeous puzzle, at least it was going to turn out that way. Everyone loved the design of his puzzle and whenever anyone saw it they would compliment it on how beautiful it was. However, he ran into a similar problem as you. He was missing a piece to his puzzle, and it too was a very significant piece. Although he had spent a lot of time on his puzzle he had decided option #1, and had thrown the puzzle away before consulting anyone. It was unclear how much time and effort he had spent to find that piece, but everyone still felt he had given up way too early, especially considering the magnificence of the puzzle.

After the shock wears off from the news of your best friend’s decision, you realize the serious nature and finality of option #1. You make your mind up that you MUST search for the piece.

TO BE CONTINUED…