Puzzling Lessons

Our Christmas day puzzle

This Christmas was delightfully homey with a smattering of entertaining and a fair amount of cooking and overindulgence.  My favorite parts involved family and friends.  

Merry pomegranates

Christmas Day, after all the presents were opened and we had been in our pj’s quite long enough, the fire had died out, and the den was trashed with wrappings and gifts, we decided to move to another room and begin a jigsaw puzzle.  

Happy dog

What were we thinking?  Three ADD people who get great satisfaction from tasks requiring extreme concentration and who are all very competitive.  We accomplished nothing else the rest of the day.

We worked into the night and by golly we finished that thing by the next morning – all 1,000 pieces.

Expert at work

“I hate puzzles” was said more than once during the marathon session.

I started buying puzzles for our family because it was something we could do together that didn't require a lot of equipment...and it encouraged verbal communication.

The finished puzzle

It occurred to me that puzzles offer a fair number of life lessons that may be valuable to others.  This is what I came up with.  Can you think of more?

Lessons from the Jigsaw Puzzle

One more piece!

• If you can’t find the right fit, walk away and come back with new perspective.  You are sure to have success.
• Dividing up the work can make a task go faster.
• Lots of pieces have similar qualities but aren’t right for the job.
• Everyone wants to get in on the project when you are about to finish the task.
• Knowing that there is an end to the task makes it easier to put up with the hard parts.
• When you are midway through and it gets dull, you start losing workers and enthusiasm.
• Setting boundaries gives you an important perspective (we work the edge pieces first).
• Camaraderie and supporting one another keep your spirits up (we high-fived and said “way-to-go” to one another often). 
• When males get bored or distracted they tell farting jokes.
• It is good for the soul to laugh so hard you think you might cry.
• Cookies taste better while puzzling and the team sticks around longer.
• People who tend to be ADD are often good at puzzles.
• When you have a particularly difficult piece to place, it makes sense to call in the expert and let him advise (one of us is particularly good at the most difficult to match pieces).
• When you try to find the final piece and it’s missing, the whole team is disappointed but glad to finish the task.