Life's a Jigsaw!

You expected as much from one who is staring at jigsaw pieces twenty-four-seven and who will be doing so for the rest of her days in Malaysia, didn't you?

A piece of 2000-tile jigsaw puzzle may look very intimidating at first sight, but if you're at it long enough, you will realise that the whole puzzle is actually made up of sequences that are repeated over and over again. So, all you have to do is to sort the pieces according to colour and type, identify the sequence of tiles, and everything else will fall into place gradually.

And if you have lived life long enough, you will also realise that life is made up of sets of routines. You wake up early in the morning, go to school, return home when you are done, have your meals, do your work, go to sleep, and you wake up the next morning to begin the routine all over again.

However, the routines are different at every phase of your life. Schooling life has its own routine, working life has another. No two rows of the jigsaw puzzle has the same sequence of tiles. So at the beginning of every new row, you will have to identify the new sequence. This is the hardest part, but once this is done and you've adapted to the new routine, you settle down quite nicely into it.

But there is a twist. Sometimes the sequence is disrupted by the corner tiles. There are slight changes to the established routine, but once in a while, a little variation is a desirable break in the routine. After all, routines are dull, and I cannot imagine my life as a boot camp.

There are times when you have to try all the tiles in order to find that one tile that fits nicely, but there are also times when the first one you pick up is the one that fits. But no matter what, at the end of the day, you will definitely find that perfect piece. A detour or two along the way will do you no harm. You may even learn a thing or two on the way. The most important thing is that you get to your destination in the end.

And the most frustrating times are the times when you seem to have tried every single tile and none of them seems to fit. You are frustrated and you begin to question why on earth are you even sitting here in the first place. No sweat! All you've got to do is to take a deep breath and exhale, and start trying all the tiles all over again. You will somehow realise that, in your exhaustion and impatience, you've missed out the correct tile. Thank God for second chances in life! Although you don't always get to undo past mistakes, there are times in life when you are given 'take-twos'. So just take a break, get yourself refreshed, and do it all over again.

Life is a jigsaw puzzle, but it is by no means puzzling. Because the One who does the puzzle has the Big Picture in His hands. The whole picture is already painted way before the first tile was ever put into place. All He has to do is to fit the correct tile into the correct place, and voila! We have a complete Big Picture at the end of it.

Ah... isn't this enlightening? Life's lessons from a jigsaw! I never knew doing jigsaw puzzle can be so enlightening. So, if anyone wants to be enlightened or is interested to contribute to KLBCC's building-fund by doing jigsaw puzzle, please dial 1800-88-DORC, that is, 1800-88-3672.