Life as a Puzzle

Growing up, I loved to puzzle. Make no mistake about it, I still do. I just rarely find the time anymore. I think what makes puzzles so fascinating to me is knowing I have all the pieces and all that remains to be done is assembling them in the right way. Sounds easy, right? Well, as it turns out completing the puzzle becomes quite hard once the puzzle becomes more complex and monotone. The smaller puzzles take but a few minutes. Puzzles with thousands of pieces can take weeks, if not months to complete. Although puzzling initially lured me in with its apparent simplicity and completeness in options (every single piece has one single right place), I quickly realized that even when you have all the right pieces, putting them together in the right way can be tricky and disheartening. For this reason, I found that completing a difficult puzzle builds at least as much character as completed picture along the way.

These were the thoughts going through my mind as I was taking the long way home the other night. And then an interesting idea popped into my mind. Isn’t life a puzzle? Isn’t a fulfilling life the biggest puzzle we each are given all the right pieces for? We are given all the pieces yet often get frightened by its sheer size and complexity.

See, we are all born with certain innate properties and predispositions. We are born into different circumstances with certain hardships or privileges. We are born to a certain set of parents, who are hopefully still around to see us grow into men, women, or whatever we may see as the primary role of our existence. Along the way, we build on our innate properties and predispositions. We grow stronger, wiser, and more experienced. We pick certain projects which we deem worth pursuing and spend most of our lives doing so—the lucky ones among us do this deliberately, the less lucky ones subconsciously. Ultimately, we all have a set of pieces which potentiates a completed puzzle. Some of us may have more pieces than others, some may have smaller and harder to place pieces than others, but in the end we all have a complete set—a set that when arranged in the right way yields a unique picture of a fulfilling life—our very own picture of a life well lived.

I think this way of thinking about living a fulfilling life is at least useful fiction—i.e., even if we may never know whether life truly is analogous to a puzzle, thinking that it is should help us live a more fulfilling life nonetheless.

Take a look at the pieces you are given. How may your various passions fit together? Where can you generate synthetic unities that allow for synergy? What’s the best way to integrate the various roles (such as girlfriend, best friend, daughter, mother, wife, grandmother, and so forth) you want to fill in your life? 

I found the best puzzling strategy is to first concern yourself with the individual pieces. Analyze and group the pieces before you start putting them together. I think living a fulfilling life is easiest when following the same strategy.