Blog 3482 – 05.16.2025

Life Often Seems A Puzzle

My wife finds relaxation and a measure of comfort in putting the pieces of jigsaw puzzles together. I, myself, find it far more relaxing just watching TV, reading a book, riding my bike or taking long walks in the woods. Above is her latest completed puzzle. It is but one of more than a hundred that Linda has completed in the last three year with many of those being put together, taken a part, and put back together several times.

One of the comments that I have heard myself say many times is: “I love a good mystery.” Life often seems like a puzzle, a big one with very small pieces that all have different shapes, and with the same colors repeated throughout. Putting puzzles together and solving the mysteries of life remind me of one of my dad’s favorite quotes from country-western singer Mel Tillis, “Life gets tedious, don’t it.”

It can indeed be tedious and frustrating putting the pieces together, figuring it out. More than a few times I have seen my wife throw her hands up, take the barely begun puzzle apart, put the pieces back in the box and throw the box on the dinning room table in defeat, only to pick it up later and begin all over again.

I had a supervise once at one of my favorite jobs working for Mercedes Benz of North America. I learned many wonderful life lessons from Bob Jurgenson. One of those lessons was how to deal with difficult problems that became paralyzingly frustrating. Bob said that he had a secretary once that was re-typing a long letter for him and she had made several attempts and had made typing errors many times and torn the pages out of the type writer in frustration. Bob advised her to throw the pages she was trying to retype over her shoulder on the floor and leave them there while she went to the break room for a cup of coffee. And after her break to pick them up, put them in order, and give it another go. She did so and finished the letter in short order without errors after a short coffee break.

An instructor at teletype repair school in the Army had given my class almost the same advice from his experience troubleshooting and repairing teletype equipment problems. Sometimes we just need to remove ourselves from the problems to see more clearly how to solve them, to unfocus so we can focus better, to unattached so we can attach better and figure out how the pieces go together.

When we find the mysteries, the problems, or the puzzles of life to difficult to solve, to fix, or to put together we need to step back, take a break, clear our mind of the problem for a bit and come back at it later with fresh eyes and a clear mind.

Linda’s first attempt at the above puzzle was a frustrating, temper-losing, box-slamming event, yet a few minutes later she calmed down and gave it another try and in a couple of hours had it all put together. All the while I watched a couple more episodes of ER. I am five episodes into season nine of fifteen. I never watched the show when it first aired, but heard great things about the show. I do so love a good story, well written, and well cast. ER is all of that and a wonderful prime time soap opera with lots of problems and puzzles for a cast of doctors and nurses to solve.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White