Life Strategies or Putting Together a Puzzle

I’ve never been much into puzzles.  In recent years puzzles have come into my life through my young grandchildren who loved puzzles especially at the age of three.  Putting things together, whether it’s a shape sorter or Legos or puzzles, is a big thing for this age group.  As a grown-up, however, I tend to prefer creating things that have a use beyond the making of them.  A puzzle is soon taken apart and put back in the box.  

But lately (meaning since the Coronavirus) I’ve needed something to occupy my unsettled thoughts.  Usually I just go outside and pick up sticks from our lawn and woodland paths.  But the weather and time of day makes it unpractical sometimes.  I can’t quite remember what made me think of puzzles, but when the thought came I remembered that my husband had bought a used 1000-piece puzzle by Will Moses at a second-hand book sale.  I’d never attempted such a small-piece puzzle before, but now seemed like the perfect time to try.

Strategies for putting a puzzle together: 

My first strategy was to piece together the border,  so I found all the straight-edged pieces and put the four corners in place first.  Already I was missing four pieces and then another dropped on the floor and my dog got to it before I could.  That made five missing pieces.  This was not a good prospect for what was to come. 

I realized I should not spend too long on trying to find a particular piece since it might not even be in existence any more.

So I concentrated on smaller scenes.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but what this did for me was boost my confidence enabling me to keep going.  Little successes helped me keep at it.  

If I wasn’t having any success I’d step away and come back later.  It was amazing how sometimes the piece I’d been searching for jumped up at me when I returned. 

Then there were the times I gave up altogether figuring it was another missing piece.   Imagine my surprise when it’d suddenly turn up days later.

My puzzle had many similar pieces.  I soon learned to notice the shading of the tree’s leaves or the hues in the sky to give me clues to which scene that particular piece belonged to.  

After a while when I had fewer pieces laying about than put into the puzzle I began gathering similar shapes together.   I soon found there were subtle differences in some pieces that led me to think I’d found the piece I was looking for, but it didn’t quite fit.  Forcing it into place wasn’t the answer because I knew that piece belonged somewhere else and I’d be defeating my purpose of filling all the empty spaces.  I’d often used that piece, though, to hold up next to another piece to see if it looked similar.  If it did, I’d give it a try.  Before too long I’d find the proper piece and could move on.

Then there were those times it felt quite mystical.  I’d pick up a piece and my hand would be guided to the proper place immediately.  I didn’t have to look at the piece or the space ahead of time.  It was always a space I’d been struggling to fill without success on previous visits to the puzzle.  It was as though I wasn’t supposed to succeed by any effort of my own.

Finally, just before I finished the puzzle, after weeks of working on it, I noticed that there was a slight bump under the table scarf next to the puzzle.  I lifted up the table scarf and there was a missing edge piece!  I found another missing piece the day after I completed the puzzle when I pulled out a chair from the other end of the table so I could stand on it to take an overhead photo of the puzzle box and discovered another errant piece!  Unless another piece decides to show up, there are 10 pieces missing.  I’ll never reassemble this puzzle again (I’m not one to reread books either) so I’d planned to throw it away when completed because of the missing pieces.  But now that I’m done, I can’t.  It’s a beautiful picture.  I love Will Moses’ painting—very much like his great-grandmother’s paintings.  Instead, I will tuck the photographs of the empty spaces into the box and give it to Goodwill with the note about the missing pieces.

In the end the missing pieces of the puzzle were only a minor annoyance.  I enjoyed the process of finding the right piece to go into the right spot.  I felt I’d accomplished something even if it was temporary.

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What struck me about this venture were all the metaphors for living life that putting a puzzle together offers.

Life is like a 1000-piece puzzle that takes a lifetime to assemble.  If all the things a child needs to grow up whole and healthy are there from the beginning she has a pretty good chance of having her life turn out as she pictured it.  But most of us start out missing the pieces of life that build a good foundation or we have things that happen along the way and we lose parts of ourselves.  This doesn’t mean we can’t have a beautiful life in the end, but it does mean we may have more challenges to get there.  Life can very much feel like a puzzle when you are piecing your life together, working with what you have and hope to have, while not knowing what lies ahead.  Trying to figure out how everything fits together is a life-long pursuit.  Here are my take aways from putting this puzzle together:  

Strategies for living a life:

Piece together the border:  Structure is important in a life along with boundaries; otherwise, you are left wide open to any and everything that could get in the way of achieving your goals.  One needs to have an idea, at least, of what one wants.  

Not spend too long on trying to find a particular piece:  Sometimes we can become obsessive about getting what we want out of life.  We become impatient and waste time spinning our wheels getting nowhere, when we should explore other possibilities.

Concentrated on smaller scenes:  Looking at the “big picture” when faced with seemingly unsurmountable circumstances often times gets us over these rough patches.  However, concentrating on the things we can be grateful for can give us the energy we need to do the work to solve our problems.  When we are able to compartmentalize our life in order to concentrate on what’s good about it, we can ward off depression and hopelessness about what is beyond our control.

Step away and come back later:  Because I tend to get frustrated when I can’t make something work (like getting the vacuum cord to wind up without a hitch or a relationship isn’t as deep as I’d wish) I’m learning to step away before I act out my frustration.  Once my emotions settle down I can think more rationally and often can deal with the problem appropriately.

Gave up altogether:  Then there are times when you SHOULD give up.  Don’t beat your head against a brick wall, so to speak.  If you’re dealing with some thing/one who is immovable, give it up for your own peace of mind.

Notice the shading or the hues:  Paying attention to subtleties can not only get you further along in life but make it more beautiful and therefore enjoyable.  When others are clueless to what’s happening around them, they miss out on much of the beauty that surrounds them, the opportunities waiting to land in their laps, and the warning signs that would have prevented many of their problems.

Gathering similar shapes together:  It’s really helpful when we’re called to step out into the unknown to have an example to follow.  As a child I was always examining the lives of the adults around me to show me how to live, or in some cases, how not to live. 

Forcing it into place wasn’t the answer:   Unfortunately, I also had TV families, like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver as examples which fostered idealism in me.  When I grew up and had my own family I tried to force my husband and children to fit into the “space” that was shaped like my ideal family.  Thankfully, for the most part, I kept my expectations to myself.  I learned pretty quickly I couldn’t force anyone to do or be something just because I wanted them to. 

See if it looked similar:  While comparing your life to someone else’s that you admire can motivate you to make necessary changes to get where you want to be, it’s not good if all it does is make you feel bad about your own life.  

Felt quite mystical:  There are times in my life that I’ve felt guided by God’s hand where things happened for my good without any effort on my part.  It’s those times I’ve listened to my intuition and everything comes together as it was meant to be.

Lifted up the table scarf:  We often have regrets about not doing something when we had the opportunity.  Sometimes, though, we are given a second chance and find the missing piece to our happiness if we will just pay attention to what God is showing us.

Pulled out a chair:  But to take advantage of that second chance we sometimes have to rearrange our lives in order to find what we were missing the first time around that kept us from pursuing our dream life then.

Enjoyed the process of finding the right piece to go into the right spot:  Life, after all, is all about the living of it.  It’s the process, really, more than the end result that brings us satisfaction.  We shouldn’t worry so much about being “successful” if what we do from day-to-day is meaningful to us.

Lesson Learned:

Having strategies can help us succeed in life.  Even with “missing pieces” it can still be beautiful, but what I have come to know is that it can never be complete/whole without the One who created me.  The best strategy for life is to be one with Him.

“Now to Him who is able to do so much more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” - Ephesians 3:20  

If you like Grandma Moses or Will Moses art you might like my post about them at my Take Joy Society blog.