Life is Like a Jigsaw Puzzle

I love jigsaw puzzles. I feel they are good for the brain. And it is no brainer that I got lots of jigsaw puzzles for Aaryan when he was a kid. From simple 10-20 pieces jigsaw puzzles we graduated to 500 pieces puzzles. winnie-bear-jigsaw-puzzle-kids-learning-kit

We were in Jammu then. One evening, Aaryan and I were engrossed in assembling this jigsaw puzzle when some friends came over. While Aaryan went off to play with the kids, a friend joined me and we worked on the puzzle together.

We looked at the complete picture (given on the box) from time to time to keep in our mind, the end result and then searched for the missing pieces. If we got stuck somewhere, we abandoned that part of the picture and focused on the other part. We tried to fit a piece in various places. Sometimes, we looked at the picture real hard and tried to find out where the piece in hand would find its place. We came back again on the earlier abandoned part of the puzzle and sorted it out. We rejoiced when a piece found its place and we got frustrated too, if a part remained elusive for long. With patience, determination, focus, we finally completed the picture and it was an Aha! moment.

Once we were done, this friend who was (God, bless his soul. We lost him to the Big C last year!) very spiritual and a well read person, said, “What if we apply this jigsaw puzzle in our life?” This intrigued us so we asked him to elaborate on it.

He explained. Suppose, the relationship between a couple had lost its charm and you want to enrich it with love and warmth, once again, the concept of solving a jigsaw puzzle can be applied here.

The first thing that we need to do is to visualize a happy and a fulfilling picture of that relationship (similar to the complete picture on the box of the jigsaw puzzle). Then start by putting in efforts that would bring happiness to the relationship (like assembling the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle). If they seem to work and start making a difference in the relationship, it’s great. It means that we are moving closer in our mission of enriching our relationship. In case the efforts or the ingredients we put in to bring a change in our relationship don’t work, we try a different strategy. The more pieces we keep adding to complete the picture, the clearer the picture becomes and in this case, better is the relationship.

We marvelled at the way he explained that life is like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to see the whole picture, then put it together piece by piece.

Isn’t this amazing? And this concept can be applied in every aspect of our life, a new project, or striving towards leading a healthy life or fighting any battle of life… Thank you B for sharing such a wonderful insight with us.

Linking to the Write Tribe’s Wednesday Prompt : “Life is like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to see the whole picture, then put it together piece by piece”