Too much!

At the “reflection time of year” between Christmas and New Years, I finished an easy jigsaw puzzle.

I tend to get all consumed with 1000-piece puzzles.

I knew I didn't have the time or the desire to add that much pressure to the holiday.

I bought this cute 300-piece puzzle of dogs in their Christmas jammies: easy and cute and fun.

As I started putting the edges together, I discovered what would become a trend, duplicate edge pieces.

It added to the degree of difficulty I hadn't expected before.

It made me doubt what clearly looked to be “correct” in the completed framework.

As I worked on this “easy” puzzle, I had multiple instances of pieces that didn't seem to have a home, only to realize I had already placed a piece just like it.

It created confusion and made me not trust what I was seeing in the evolving puzzle.

As I realized the piece was an exact duplicate, I would set it aside so it could not cost me any more time or effort.

I finished the puzzle and wondered, was someone else missing these pieces?

Would that be worse than being confused by having too many pieces?

I also realized that my thought process changed.

From the time I picked up each piece, I started to factor in “Could this be a duplicate?”

My thinking evolved from “that's never happened, so it couldn't be” to “it’s entirely possible, and don't waste time if there is not an obvious place for this piece”.

Since it was time for reflection, my brain started taking that puzzle lesson and applying it to the New Year.

What pieces am I adding that aren't necessary?

How can I simplify versus make things more complex?

What is redundant, especially as we consider AI resources?

And here is the one that really hit home, “What is really mine to solve? to fix?”

Why do we take on burdens that belong to others when we know only they can walk their journey?

By taking on others’ puzzle pieces, it makes it harder to stay focused on our own life puzzles.

Why do we compare ourselves to others and expect to copy their process to achieve their success?

Sure, there are good ideas we can learn from, but make sure that they fit the actual picture of your life that you are trying to create.

My focus this year is going to be onmyjourney,mylife's creation and not picking up those extra puzzle pieces.

Cyndi

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