It was a winter morning in 2017, when my 6-year-old son was busy making a puzzle that was a bit advanced for him. The kids love to involve me in their play, but with 3 children of 2, 4 and 6 years old, I must divide my attention quite a bit as each one has their own game going on. My son asked me if I could do the puzzle with him, while I was kind of literally stuck to the artwork of my 4-year-old girl (picture lots of finger paint and glue involved). So I guided him from the sideline. Busy doing this, it struck me how much life is like making a puzzle. We sometimes do have a vision of what our complete, or "picture perfect" would (or should) look like, but we don’t know where to start. Which puzzle piece fits in where? We get lost in searching for just that 1 piece. Or imagine that your puzzle is mixed up with another one and you don’t know for sure which of the pieces belong to your puzzle! While I was busy guiding my son through his puzzle, asking him which piece he was looking for, what color would it have, what kind of picture would be on it, what can you already see; other things happened just like it happens in the puzzle of life. When he couldn’t find the right pieces quickly or easily enough, he got distracted; saw something else that was also interesting to do.
Then he got discouraged to continue and wanted to quit his puzzle. And that is exactly what often happens to us in life: when something is difficult and you can’t find the right puzzle pieces, well surely I will get distracted and find other things to do! What about you?
I tend to loose sight of the bigger picture I was building on and will have very legitimate reasons to stop building my puzzle, telling myself I will continue later on… Maybe you can relate to this? Or are you also secretly hoping that someone else will build the puzzle for you (as my son wanted me to do for him). The thing is, it’s YOUR puzzle of life. You can ask for help to find a missing piece or to figure out how your pieces will fit together, but in the end, YOU have to put the pieces into place. So I asked my son how it was that he learned to ride his bike? Was it because I climbed on his bike and rode it for him? He looked at me and started laughing as I said something very silly.
“Of course not, I did it!” he said.
And then he saw the relation to his puzzle: if he stopped trying, he wouldn’t finish it. If I would do it for him, it wouldn’t be his accomplishment.
Life is like making a puzzle, enjoy the process and in the end, a beautiful picture will be unveiled. - M.H. Lovemore -
It wasn’t much later that he looked at me with a very proud expression: mama I did it, I figured out how all the pieces come together and make the picture complete!
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