Here is a way to have some fun, live out the coming year in mere hours and remind yourself to keep going... no matter what.

Do a jigsaw puzzle. Really. 750 pieces or more. Buy a new one, no more than $10 dollars.  Pick a pretty tough one. Here's why...

Putting together a jigsaw puzzle is like living life but you get it all done in hours rather than years.

Sometimes the pieces are really obvious and you just see how things fit.

Sometimes it's not hard to add to the things that fit.

Sometimes after you have had a bunch of pieces come together, you just can't see another thing and your life just seems like a million pieces that don't fit - except for those few that came together easily. You find yourself asking "Is that all there is?"

Sometimes you look at the pieces and think - and really feel - "I just don't see how this can go together. I just can't put it together."

Sometimes, it's so bad, you start looking on the floor because you are certain some of the pieces are missing. They must be, because you are certain you have considered every single piece and can’t find the one that fits… right…. THERE!

Many times, you just want to quit. No matter how you look at it, no matter how many strategies you devise, you hit points where you just come to believe you will never get it all together.  And you walk away from the puzzle.

Funny thing about that, you walk away, but you don’t throw the puzzle back in the box or throw it away. It just stays right there on the table in its clearly unfinished scattered state.

Time passes and you sit at the table again.  With fresh eyes you find a piece or two and marvel “I’m sure I tried that one before and it didn’t work…” But somehow, today, it fits.

You make progress.  You can start to see the bigger picture. Substantial chunks are coming together in separate parts, but they aren’t connected yet.  You think “I can do this.”  Only to get just a few pieces farther and hit the wall.  Again.  And walk away. Again.  And think this will never come together.  Again.  And ask yourself “Why am I even doing this stupid puzzle?”

Time passes. You continue to return. The more pieces you put together, the harder it is to find where the next one goes. While in the past a good season was 20-30 pieces, not you declare victory if you can get 3-5.  And sometimes, you get none.

The sense that you will never finish grows as you progress and the pieces get harder to distinguish from one another. Yet, at the same time, piece by piece, hard as it is, you just know more of the puzzle is coming together and there are fewer pieces to sort through to find the right one.

The longer you work it, the more fulfilling it is, and the more frustrating it is that you can’t fit the pieces.  You have 725 in place and 25 remain.  How can this be so difficult?  But the fact is, we leave the toughest pieces for last.  They are the pieces with no distinguishing characteristics, the ones that tie it all together and can’t be told apart from each other.

You get to a point when you just know it will work and push on.

Then, all of a sudden, the final pieces just come into place. There in front of you is the finished puzzle and a sense of amazement of what you went through to see this picture.

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Life is a puzzle put together piece by piece. Even the projects and big decisions of life are like that.  I worked a jigsaw puzzle during this holiday break and felt all the things I shared above. I really did hit times I felt I would not solve. it  I did keep coming back. Sometimes I sat there even though I couldn’t see the next piece fitting.  And as I did, I was actually encouraged because I realized it really did feel like my day to day experience of life.

I share this to start the year because I just finished and got the picture.  And I thought it would be nice to encourage you as you start the year.

·         Start the puzzle.

·         Enjoy the challenge of putting it together.

·         Know you will stop, be stopped, feel frustrated and want to quit, but don’t.

·         Keep the puzzle on the table even when you don’t want to work on it.

·         Trust that all the pieces were there (by the way, all the pieces WERE on the table).

·         Don’t give up.

·         Don’t give up.

·         Don’t give up.