I like puzzles, but only when I know what they're supposed to look like when they're finished. If someone hands me a 500 piece puzzle in a plastic bag, but I have no idea what the finished product is supposed to look like, it doesn't usually work for me. Even if all 500 pieces are there, I still have to know what colors go where and what shades make up each of the borders, otherwise, it's no puzzle for me. It would just take too long to figure out. I don't have the patience.
Sometimes life feels just like this. It feels like a giant puzzle that you're given all the pieces to but don't know what the end product is supposed to look like. You have all the right pieces, but you're not sure where they all go, so you have to piece them all together slowly but surely as they come. I guess that's why we have a lifetime to figure it all out.
I've felt like this a lot lately. I'm going through situations, interviewing for jobs and facing difficulties that only make sense now because of what I've experienced in the past. It's as if I was given the pieces a long time ago, and they're just now fitting together, whereas before I was just sitting there with those pieces thinking, "Why do I even have these?"
It's as if everything happens for a reason, as cliche as that is. Could there really be some great, Puzzle Master handing out all the pieces to everyone, in order for everyone to work out there own puzzle at their own pace. I'd bet my puzzle on it. Some puzzles are bigger than others, some are different shapes and some are different colors. Some puzzles have smaller pieces, others have bigger pieces and some take longer to solve than others. The point is this: life can be puzzling at times, and we don't always know why we're holding the piece we are until we find the corresponding piece. Sometimes, that takes years.
My very first internship in college was an events internship at the university's library. Since then, I've had several other event-related jobs, without ever actually trying to have event-related jobs. Weird, right? Now, I'm applying for an events-related job at a major concert/sports venue. Will I get the job? I don't know, but I do know I have the puzzle pieces to match it. In this unique case, it's not like I was every trying to collect 'events' puzzle pieces; They often just seemed to be handed to me. For now, I'm not sure, but it may seem they were handed to me for a reason. I can't wait to find out.
What pieces are being handed your way? Do you like the shape and size of them? If you do, great! If you don't, keep holding on to them. You never know when their corresponding pieces might show up.
-Cliff
-Cliff's Note: Life can be puzzling at times, and we don't always know why we're holding the puzzle piece we are . . . until we find the corresponding piece.