Either you are a piece, or you are the puzzler it seems these days. Or perhaps both in some cases, where you are a pawn and a player both at the same time. Creating the pieces of the jigsaw at the same time as having to piece them together, and when someone asks what the picture is you are creating – you just stare blankly at them. Because how can you know what the picture is meant to be? You don’t know the end before you start watching something new, do you? Or maybe that’s why some people don’t want to take part, because if you don’t know the end, or what the picture should be, how can you ‘play’. And on the other side, some may actually have an idea of what the end result should be, or they would like it to be, and happily engage in trying to place those pieces. But in real life, those ‘pieces’ are usually people, places and events or experiences. Almost like expecting to be able to finish the puzzle before all the pieces have been cut out yet and printed with their ‘scene’.

And sometimes I think that’s how growing up felt, in a constant rush to get there, thinking it was supposed to be all neatly printed and cut into perfect pieces that would fit together with an end result. But the picture changes with time, the pieces are now for the wrong puzzle and nothing comes together as it once did. Or maybe that’s when you get dragged into someone else’s, and it doesn’t fit because it doesn’t fit, but some try to make it so, forcing a square peg into a round hole kind of thing. And there is a problem, but because maybe the overall picture being worked to is mildly the same, it might work or appear to at first. Have you ever tried forcing a jigsaw piece to where you wanted it to go rather than where it fits? Exactly.

But as you would if you received a puzzle with no picture or instructions, you wing it. And that can be a pivotal moment for some, to realise many others are just winging it, literally making things up as they go along. With the appearance of having a plan, or of believing even that they do and they are in control of things and life. Maybe that’s why some really can’t copy when ‘things don’t go to plan’, because they had one and it usually revolves around them, often not actually factoring in other people, real life, time, expectations etc.

There are often times when people also will think or say that ‘they don’t fit in’. Think about that in the context of the puzzle, why would they not fit? Could it be because it’s not their puzzle or board they are being pushed into, and instead of being able to find the right place as you would normally, they are put in place, with the edges shaved off a bit to make it fit in the moment. Adapting every piece as it arrives to make it work, rather than have an overall view and each piece is unique with it’s placing. So a non-logical, not very ordered composition starts to occur, looking more like a hideous and terrifying landscape and creation, instead of a coherent and splendid picture. So, with that in mind, try and be the star piece in your own puzzle of life, instead of being reshaped and made to be a background part of someone else’s…

(c) K Wicks