The Puzzle of Life Isn’t Really Puzzling, Is It?

My Morning Pages this morning undoubtedly tasted trite. Who hasn’t heard of the analogy of trying to make puzzle pieces fit into the wrong space being like us trying to fit in somewhere or do something for which we are just not suited?

This past weekend as I watched my two year old grandson putting a little puzzle together, I was amused at how he tried to place a piece into its spot, but it was turned the wrong way. He quickly turned it 180º, tried again, and it still didn’t go. He turned it over, pushed extra hard, but no luck. He quickly, nonchalantly, just brushed it aside, grabbed another piece for another hole, and bingo, fit it right in. He knew his puzzle; he knew what he had not mastered. He figured out he wouldn’t waste effort on something he didn’t know and he would use the energy on the piece that he had mastered.

I could draw many analogies from this — puzzles just work out great that way — but I learned from my grandson. Even though at first I may have wished he figured out that one piece, I thought about it. Why? It didn’t serve him; he knew he didn’t know how to get it, and he moved on. And there’s point number one. How much easier could we make our lives and how much energy could be channeled into strengths if we knew ourselves?

Of course, that is the big question: who am I, really? What has my heart communicated to me? Children have an intuitive advantage until they are taught that core Self doesn’t usually conform to society norms, and ego takes over primary work. We must come to know self and use that spiritual energy to make that self known through our life purpose, which we create, and dream the vision and form the mission to execute the dream, the vision.

And what does that do? Allows us to express our love to a world in desperate need of it. If this is what we wish to do, then the corollary to knowing Self and, therefore, knowing where to put our energies — manipulating the puzzle pieces we know we should be using — is to create our own puzzle.

Don’t let others try to squeeze you into their puzzles; we don’t have to conform. We can design our own puzzle — no forcing pieces, then. (Don’t take this too far, though, because sometimes we can express Self as a piece in someone else’s puzzle, as it were.)

This is why I think coming to know core Self through the Fellowship of the Heart is basic; otherwise, we spend life energy trying to fit ourselves into other people’s puzzles where we don’t fit. Why would we wish to live in frustration and be unfulfilled?

When we know Self, we can make our own puzzle, fill in the pieces that are us, and see who the Universe sends along to help complete our vision. Whether we work to express Self in a puzzle of our own design or whether we do that in someone else’s, we always are working to complete our vision, not our core Self.

​It really isn’t too puzzling, is it? Much love and blessings.