Completing the jigsaw of you?
It would be helpful and instructive if every child was born with the label “self-assembly required” stuck upon their heads, not only would this remind parents of their solemn duty but would be a constant reminder of the child's responsibility to themselves. And it would not be removed when we became adults as it turns out the instructions for our construction that we do possess were written in a strange non-verbal alien language, and spare parts keep on materialising without warning in the box.
Worse than that every so often you are require to entirely disassemble what you have built so far and start again from the beginning according to a different blueprint, whilst other parts of the jigsaw just need slotting in to the right place and/or at the correct time, and you are giving no real clue as to which one it might be. That is unless you take some very advanced language courses and listen to the right channel, because the verbs that you require to understand are spoken through experience and silence, and cannot be written down.
Whilst I am not suggesting for moment we are two-dimensional pictures that just need slotting together, if we were then it would be a lot easier to spot the missing pieces and anyone who is not a perfect being is most definitely missing several to a dozen critical clues as to what the picture could reveal. Not that it is ever going to be a picture with a neat label, the labels that we make up about what we think we are, the ones that our language gives to us, the social shorthand that we use to make judgements about others, mother, brother, lawyer, entrepreneur, these are just ideas, vague categorisation, the little boxes that no one quite fits in, and that is before we even get to the deeper judgements that can change the nature of the boxes.
The difference between an evil money grabbing lawyer and a socially concerned crusading lawyer, is huge, obvious and yet impossible to quite define in a satisfactory manner. They certainly do not tell us about the nature of the lawyer just what their surface appearance might be, the socially concerned can be egotistical and the money driven lawyer can be exceptionally professional and effective.
However even if you could drive down to what the label might indicate, that would at best be one aspect of a complete person. A bad lawyer might be good parents, a gifted teacher might have destructive habits and an innocent bystander might enjoy the spectacle of others disasters. There is no single label that describes you or excuses you from considering the other aspects of your life, you have to get a passing mark in all parts of you life. The good opinion of others can be especially dangerous, you never get to rest on your laurels, you never get to be done or to be right on everything, the jigsaw must be completed over a lifetime.
At best we get to be right half the time and that is being generous, scientists do not have the moral high ground to tell people how to live, politicians do not necessarily understand economics even if they have a feeling as to what is right and priests do not get to tell you what is moral because they have read a boring book, read your own, read many and most importantly read books that you disagree with. You get to decide on the picture you want to create.
And you have to at least attempt to figure out the jigsaw reveals about who you are, before you start asking other people to complete it for you, it is unreasonable to make another person tell you who that person in the jigsaw is and how to make them happy when you do not even know who it is. That seems like an irrational request to me, to expect someone else to complete the jigsaw when you have not even tried and have thrown the pieces up in the air and said I do not know what is going on, and then asks, can someone else do it for me? The answer to which is always no, because they do not know what I do want, but because it is physically impossible, no one else can hear the instructions that you need to follow, it is only for you, and is only through experience that you can hear them, experience is the language that speaks to and guides us. It does not speak through words, it is silent in that sense but equally it is the loudest language you ever hear, it expresses itself through feelings and emotion, it rattles against life situation and actions that you take that it does not agree with but it never says a word.
You have to choose to listen to the silence within you, to what your inner being wants and desires. When you feel resistance that is your inner self showing you something important, not necessarily as a warning though it frequently is, rather that it is important to you, so that you might use that resistance as a force for change, as we use anger for clarity and the urge for action, it is a powerful dynamic force whose energy should be channelled into a purpose or it can be harmful to ourselves. It is up to us to be open to the opportunities that resistance and powerful emotions give us, it is up to us to use them with elegance and skilfulness, to prompt action that is equal to those aspirations.
Equally the thinking mind can be used to uncover these resistances, we can choose to pay attention to what is happening, we can observe our inner selves or completely ignoring it, though this is the limit of it's usefulness. If we are not careful, we can listen to our personal ideologies or reasoning, we can set conditions for our happiness to be fulfilled and these seem so reasonable, if I have this then I will be happy, it could be a promotion, pay rise or even meeting the partner that will complete me, and in the world of cause and effect that seems like it should be true.
However the reality is quite different, happy is not the end of the process, happiness is in the process, we get to choose whether we are happy or sad in this moment. You can do anything in a happy or sad way, a cold shower, fasting, even imprisonment can be happy or sad thing entirely depending on the attitude of the person doing. Whether they have decided to be happy or sad, reality then conforms to or at least your personal reality and that is the only one you should be concerned about, it is the only one you are completely responsible for and anyone else's is completely not your responsibility. Again you get to choose your responsibilities, though I suggest only choosing the ones you have actual control over otherwise you are going to be very unhappy, and the sweetest responsibility you have is to complete the jigsaw of who you are, you might just like the person that is revealed to you.
