October 22, 2021
Last Wednesday, I came across this post of @marblely on noisecash about the Jigsaw puzzle as a metaphor for life. And this inspired me to write this article.
Have you ever felt like there is still a missing piece in your life, or you seem lost in your way?
Way back when I was a kid, I perceived the world as a huge complex puzzle and things were tough to fathom. When my father bought a jigsaw puzzle for me, I played it sloppily by just placing every piece of it on the empty spaces where I want to place the piece without considering if it does fit into it or would it form a correct pattern in the end. Because for me, that was just a toy that I had to play with.
But there were moments that I wanted to match and fit all the pieces into their respective spaces and pay attention to their knobs and holes to form complete and correct patterns on the jigsaw puzzle board. And I felt overwhelmed once I assembled it well and saw perfect patterns. And due to pretty little accomplishments, I would play it again and again until I mastered the process of assembling the jigsaw puzzles like a piece of cake.
Remembering those innocent days, I feel like there were still millions of gems and stones I have yet to collect, paths I have yet to find, and jigsaw puzzles I have yet to solve. And I could feel like, in my early '30s, my life is still a messy unsolved puzzle and I am still in a daze finding which path to follow every time I reach the end of a certain tunnel. Will I go east, west, north, or south, or get back to where I started? That's always the question.
Even if I already have collected many pieces in my life and have been to many places, there are still missing pieces and places that I have yet to find. But as the adage goes, "everything happens for a reason and things would just fall into place."
Taking down memory lane when I was asked by my elementary teacher, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" For the sake of compliance, I answered her, "I want to be a teacher" as my relatives were teachers. Then the song Que Sera Sera was played by her and she taught us the meaning of the song. "The future's not ours to see. Whatever will be will be." This was the lesson from the song I never forget up to this date.
When I grew up, things constantly changed as well as my dreams and decisions in life. I started dreaming to be a Computer Engineer when I was in High School and followed my preferred path and took a Computer Science degree in College.
But as I stepped out of the university and faced the world of work, thoughts of diverting my path to achieve a better life filled my mind due to uncertainties and burdens that life has thrown at me, and fear of missing out as I have seen how my batch mates excelled from the path they have chosen and attained better lives. I kept juggling from one job to another as I couldn't find the missing piece that I wanted to fit into my jigsaw puzzle board.
There was even one time I lost my way and found it hard to get back on track. I was in the middle of the complex road and undecided about which path to follow. The one that was chosen by others, or the one I prefer to take. But due to uncertainties, I have chosen the path that was outlined by others.
I had regrets about choosing the preferences of other people over mine as many things were spared by fate and it left me no choice but to consider their wants and needs into account. And thinking about the byproducts of my actions, every piece seems not to fit in the jigsaw puzzle pattern I have designed at the beginning of my endeavor. And even if I collected all the pieces with similar shapes and colors, I couldn't assemble them well to perfectly form the pattern I have made as knobs and holes of every piece don't fit into each other, and some pieces went missing that made the whole pattern totally different.
But then again I just told myself, "it happened for a reason and I am on a new path for another reason."
While taking this new path to look for the missing pieces, I then realized, "why do we have to look for the missing pieces if we can make new jigsaw puzzle patterns?"
Things don't fall into place that I was expecting but better patterns were formed.
Every person I've met, every place I've been to, everything I've got, every opportunity I grabbed, and every achievement I obtained, all were placed into my jigsaw puzzle life but my journey for looking for some missing pieces will continue so I could fit them into the remaining spaces.
Not all things will fall into place and not all missing pieces could be found. However, we could collect those new things and pieces to form a better pattern. It may be different from the original pattern, but it could be better once we place all pieces perfectly into the board.
With that, a new journey would commence and we just have to trust the process and let everything fall into place. But when things seem to go south, we just have to channel our way back to the right direction and continue following the right path while collecting new pieces of our jigsaw puzzle life.
A perfect time will come that missing pieces will be found and all pieces will be put together. By that moment we could say that our effort is worth taking and everything makes perfect sense!
I will leave you with this beautiful quote from Sankalp Sankhala about jigsaw puzzles and life.
So don't be upset if you have found a broken or different piece for your jigsaw puzzle. Because there is a reason why that certain piece falls on your way. Instead of stressing yourself finding the missing piece that fits the hole, why not create a new one using the newly found pieces? Because sometimes, uncertainties happen in our life to form madness so we could disentangle ourselves from this complex life and world successfully to become a better version of ourselves.
Thank you for reading.
Time of writing: 10:20 am 10/21/21
I'm pretty sure I have formed numerous new jigsaw patterns that have deviated from the original puzzle but such is life, there's nothing certain about it and at one point or the other we have to follow a new path or we will keep wasting time stuck on a missing puzzle piece