I don’t know who wrote the saying at the end of this post. I jotted it down years ago when I saw it somewhere, and it’s been taped to my desk ever since. So just for the record, if the real author sees this, I don’t claim ownership of it, just ignorance of your name.
This saying attracted my attention because it’s one of those things I don’t do well. I think we are often attracted to wisdom we haven’t mastered or to people who are different from us. It’s like those things complement us, like two halves of a broken locket coming together (Can you tell my brain is still on Nancy Drew – The Clue of the Broken Locket ?)
Now even though we are each complete in ourselves – our answers are within and we each possess the best and worst of the Universe in our hearts – I think we rediscover our own truths and talents quicker through our connection to others. It’s like in chemistry. A reaction between two compounds may take place, but if you add a catalyst, it happens a lot faster and more effectively.
Where it might take us years (or centuries) to learn or rediscover something about ourselves, with the shared experiences, joys, and wisdom of friends and the people we encounter in life, we learn our truths so much quicker if we’re open to looking.
I think we are each a puzzle picture whose pieces got splintered and scattered when we showed up here at birth. We spend our life trying to find or rediscover those pieces so we can again be whole. Given enough time, trial and errors, we probably will put it all together, but I think the process is so much richer and effective when shared with the others in our life. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
When someone else displays a particularly interesting puzzle piece of their own, we have the opportunity to be grateful for that. It may give us a clue to something within ourselves we’d forgotten or just weren’t seeing. It may teach us a path for how to do this journey with more joy, and less pain. It can teach us to appreciate and remember the wondrous variety that is out there in life and within our own hearts.
For me, the following bit of wisdom is a reminder of the power of the “simple.” I often look at things and figure unless you can deliver the whole ball of wax right away or in one fell swoop, or unless you can do the “big” thing, why bother because only doing the small thing is useless. I often fail to see that just one small effort can make such a big difference and can lead to success unimagined. It is the puzzle piece I don’t see in life.
So for today, the wisdom of the puzzle piece of simplicity, and thank you to the author of it, whoever you are:
“The opportunity for success lies in the modest and attainable.”
Soul Mosaic 