Fragments

Plans change.  We sometimes decide for or against things, and sometimes we allow things to decide for us.  And sometimes there simply isn't a choice at all.  

I'm not entirely sure what combination of the three put me on the path I walk today.  It's likely that's true for a lot of us. 

A much-younger me, at various times, planned to be:  A trucker, a psychologist, or a writer.  Somewhere along the way, I also briefly entertained pilot, teacher and fly-fishing guide.  

I hate to brag.  The fact that my career plans were all so closely related and meticulously-chosen, should speak loudly enough by itself about my single-minded focus.  But I fear it would be selfish to leave you without some idea of the decisiveness and follow-through I've exhibited over almost five decades, with respect to those youthful dreams, just in case it might motivate or inspire:

I'm a grain trader.

All is not lost, however.  If you'll grant that a single flight hour at the controls of a Cessna 172 some 25 years ago counts as "pilot", and that occasionally talking an acquaintance off the proverbial ledge when they're upset or furious (likely with ME, explaining my involvement) as "psychologist", I've still done - and sometimes still do - those things, during the course of my days.  It's just that I do them with great mediocrity and unprofessionalism, and never with the competency that a real practitioner would exude.

But my meandering path in life is really a small, scatterbrained example of the human condition.  I'd wager yours is, too.  In one way or another, we're all on an endless search.  Trying to better ourselves, or at least find contentment.   To find meaning in the mundane routines within which, by necessity, we spend most of our time.  We're all trying to become or experience something different or something more.  

But even when we feel absolutely stuck; mired in place for endless seasons, we're always in the midst of change.  Our minds, our habits, our desires.  Our cars, our hobbies and our opinions.  None have likely escaped revision, adjustment, reversal, elimination or trade over the years.    Whether we realized it or not, it was up to us whether they changed for the better.

The problem with admitting that, for many of us, is that it is quite probable that several of our changes haven't been for the better.  Maybe even most of them.  

That's not unusual.  And it isn't terribly difficult to understand why:  At the time we made those changes, we didn't have the wisdom that hindsight now affords.   No matter our efforts - regardless of how much we seek and think and work and change - we end up somewhere else.  And that is what makes much of life so frustrating.  It seems, at times, that our circumstances intertwine and obscure confusingly, into  a singularly-unsolvable puzzle.  

The fact that we all feel that way at times is what fuels an entire industry:  Thousands of podcasts, tens of thousands of speeches, a million books, all telling us that if we read or listen-to or spend money on enough of them, we will find the key.  The pieces will fall into place, and we'll see the great, overarching theme of it all.  Our newfound understanding will bring us riches and success and contentment.

But thousands of podcasts, tens of thousands of speeches, and a million books, are wrong.

How could we truly believe a career might bring total fulfillment, when careers are often largely based on circumstance - or worse - the guesses of a young person, barely out of childhood, with access to only the most imperfect of information?   How could it ever be logical to hope that eventually we will feel that "we've arrived", when we know from experience that regardless of achievement, or position or knowledge or skill, that day has never yet come?   Why is it that we continue to buy the idea that one more dollar will satisfy, when the two we made yesterday failed to do it?

Nothing makes sense, when we're trying to guess what fulfillment looks like, having never experienced it.  Nothing fits together, when our best efforts amount to nothing more than lurching haphazardly, alone, toward an unseen horizon.

Life is a puzzle.  It's just that we've made it too small.

We've mistakenly assumed that we each have a solution individual to us.  It is up to us to gather the pieces, assemble them in order, and only then can we enjoy the results.

But consider, for a minute, a physical puzzle.  The kind you buy at the store.  The kind your grandmother had, perpetually-unfinished, on a card table in her back room.  

It hasn't been solved.  It's new, in fact.  The box just turned over, the pieces freshly scattered.

Now make it larger.  Much larger.  Millions of pieces.  Billions.

And now imagine those pieces are given intelligence.  They are made self-aware.

One piece would look to his left, and see the same thing every other piece sees:  More pieces, all with irregular edges and swooping curves and flashes of color.

But nothing would make sense.  There would be no theme.  No meaning.  

They're just pieces.  

Until one day, one piece would find another that had the mirror image of her jagged edge.  Still another would find one more that had a corner where he only had a space.

Flash of color would meet color, and the structure would widen.  Each piece would bolster the next, filling gaps, adding support, building strength upon weakness, surplus upon void, until one day, a larger picture would begin to appear.

Of course, from a distance, it could've been seen that way all along.

But now, even amongst the pieces, it would begin to make sense.  The picture may remain largely obscured, but the fact that something larger was being created would be beautifully clear.  And the pieces would've simply remained pieces - small, insignificant and without purpose - if each piece resolutely believed the solution lay in redoubling his efforts at self-betterment.   If he thought himself the puzzle, rather than a part.

The best career advice for recent graduates?  Look outside yourself, to see where you can help.

The best advice for those struggling at midlife?  Look outside yourself, to see where you can help.

And the advice remains unchanging, for the newly-married and the newly-retired.  For the strong and the weak and the criminal and the judge.  For those with more and those with little. For the trucker, psychologist and writer.  And the pilot, the teacher and the guide.  And the grain trader.  And you.