... Or How to Live Without Seeing the Whole Picture
Whatever I do in my everyday life, I constantly notice connections that reveal, layer by layer, the mysterious design of my existence.
At one point in my life, I became fascinated with putting together jigsaw puzzles. Even now, I can happily abandon everything else and settle in for this activity — despite the strain it puts on my back and eyes.
I know people who find such painstaking work exhaustingly boring. For me, however, it is a way to step away from my daily responsibilities and rest. Putting together a puzzle brings my mind into a quiet, almost meditative state.
I have completed about a dozen puzzles, and the same scenario never ceases to surprise me.
No matter how carefully I sort the pieces into four sections (each piece is marked on the back with the letter of the section it belongs to), I invariably misplace between one and three key pieces.
It seems inexplicable because I sort every piece carefully and systematically. And yet, while assembling one section or another, I lose sight of the very piece I need. I find it only later, among pieces that belong somewhere else.
Until it connects with the others, it seems not to fit anywhere.
What do I think about at moments like these?
That all the events in our lives — our encounters and connections with different people, our education and professional achievements, the projects we started and never finished, our interests and hobbies, the actions we were forced to take, and the choices we made consciously — are puzzle pieces.
Only when certain circumstances come together do we begin to see one section of the larger picture of our lives.
Not the whole picture at once.
Section by section.
And suddenly, every unappealing or incomprehensible piece turns out to be exactly where it belongs.
The only problem is that sometimes we realize this fifteen years later.
One piece of my own life, for example, became clear to me only after the COVID-19 pandemic began.
About a year and a half before the pandemic, I “somehow” developed a very firm intention to set aside more savings, not only for myself, but for every member of my family. I reduced my spending and saved the money instead.
I also decided that this was the moment to invest my earnings in publishing the poetry collection Corridor of Inspirations and How Not to Kill the Muse in three bilingual editions: Ukrainian–English, Russian–English, and English–Arabic.
As a result, in May 2019, I published four books at once.
It was my very first publishing experience.
That same summer, I decided it was time to change workplaces, and mentally, I was already packing my bags for a major move.
Oh, and one more thing.
When the confusion around COVID began, and no one yet knew a complete lockdown lay ahead, I “somehow” decided I needed to return home from my business trip that very day.
It was the last flight.
After that, the skies closed.
Only a year and a half or two years later did that section of the picture finally come together.
Now, when I look back at all those decisions and choices, I understand why I made them.
But if you had asked me back then why I was saving money so diligently, I could not have told you that my family and I would need it when we were all confined to our homes without work, because the work we did was no longer in demand.
Nor could I have explained why it felt so important to hurry with the publication of the printed books, why I worked on that project day and night for months, or why I imposed such a strict deadline on myself.
The reason became clear only later: in 2020, I would have had neither the financial means nor the opportunity to bring that project to life.
And how many other pieces have already fallen into place?
How many more eventually will?
No number of books would be enough to describe the logic behind everything that happens in each of our lives.
But the moral of my fable is this:
Even the most unappealing episode of our life — the one that seems useless, incomprehensible, or simply wrong — is a puzzle piece. Without it, the whole picture cannot be completed.
Everything we have learned.
Everyone we have met.
Everything we have tried, discovered, and forgotten.
All of these are pieces that gradually assemble the picture of our life.
And perhaps one of those pieces is still waiting to find its place.
Do not throw it away.
It belongs in the bigger picture.
It is waiting for its time.