After I moved down to Florida to pursue my life long dream of working at Disney World, I had a rude awakening that life doesn't always go the way that you want it to. Although I was living in the Wonderful World of Disney, the place where everyone dreams to be, the only place that I was "dreaming" to be was home. I missed everything about home. I missed the mountains, my comfortable house, my family, It got down to the point where I even missed doing HOMEWORK! Yes I said it, I was next door neighbors with Mickey Mouse himself and I would've rather done homework than go to Disney World! I was CRAZY!!!
During all of my homesickness, I received a letter in the mail from this awesome guy who I like to call Dad. In this letter he was giving me all of the fatherly advise he could think of to help me be my happy self again. He gave me a list of things that I could do to fill my schedule so that I had no time to even think about home. But, being the wise man my Dad is, there was one thing that he said that really stood out to me. He thought of this analogy comparing life to a puzzle. It is so good and so relatable that I just have to share it with everyone. Im not even going to try to rephrase his words into mine because I don't think anyone could say it better than he could have.
" I like to think that our lives are like a puzzle and we are putting pieces of that puzzle together everyday, with every decision we make. Sometimes we aren't quite sure where the pieces are going to go and where they will fit. Sometimes, we try to put a certain piece in the wrong place. We think we can force it in place and that it will look fine. Some pieces are bright and cheerful and colorful. Some are dark and in the shadows and we wonder why we have pieces like that in our puzzle. Some are the easy corner pieces and the edges and things that make perfect sense in our lives. Some really leave us confused and we can't seem to find a place where they fit. In fact, we hope some of them don't fit and that we have pieces that are just there in the wrong box. I hope you get what I'm trying to say. Life is really really good, but there are hard times for us in all of our lives. It's how we handle the good and the bad that will help determine what our finished puzzle will look like. We might like some of the parts better than the others, but the finished picture should be something we are very proud of. We are all working on our own puzzles, but we have people and family members around us who can help us see where certain pieces should fit. Nobody likes to put a puzzle together by himself."
This letter from my dad totally changed the way that I look at life, and I hope it changed yours too. Although others can help us with our puzzle, they can't do it all. Everyones puzzle is a different picture. We might look at someone else's life and think that it is perfect. Don't try to reach over to someone else's puzzle and take a few of their good pieces because you feel like they have more than they need. They will have their dark pieces too. We are all supposed to have those awkward and dark pieces in our lives. Going through hard times and trials forms us into becoming what we are capable of being. We all also have the bright and sunny pieces in our puzzles. Those ones are an important part of our picture as well. So as you go through your regular day to day trials, sadnesses, and even the good times and happiness, just remember that you are being formed and molded into becoming who you are meant to be!
