Solving the puzzle

This wealth drop comes as a result of a very interesting interaction with Naman, one of our readers from India, as we explore how to manage ups and downs.

Around when I turned 40, I had enough evidence that life was not a straight line going up, but a series of ups and downs. When we are up, we feel we have accomplished something, get a better view, and enjoy our contentment. Ahhh it is all about how “we made it”. When we are down, we feel incomplete, have lost our vision, and can’t understand why we are there. Ahhh it is all about “life is hard”. Looking at life as a series of dots of “ups” did not do it for me. I found that connecting the dots was a much better way of living my life. Staying up on the top is only good for a short period of time, otherwise we become arrogant and stop growing. Somehow we get the urge to explore other areas, even if it means coming down. Like the chaos theory that claims that the world evolves towards order until it can’t stand it anymore and explodes.

The problem when thinking in ups and downs, is that we miss the complexity of going sideways. So I was looking for another analogy and found out multidimensional puzzles? Have you ever worked on a puzzle? What is more enjoyable? The ‘moment’ when you are done or the “period’ where you are testing this or that, trying to find the best possible piece and realizing it has a perfect fit to then go to the next empty hole? Well, that is exactly what happens in life. You get the pieces all rumbled and scattered and life is but a journey to find the pieces and put them in the perfect fit spots… some pieces are there for no reason, simply because we can’t connect them.

Some people have a vision of their puzzle, and they move quite fast… until the chaos theory kicks in and mmmm we want to explore without a vision. Others go around and as they find a piece they put it somewhere, they are less efficient but they also reach a point where the chaos theory kicks in and voila, time to get a vision and move faster. Sometimes we throw away pieces, sometimes we even have to create them. (been there, done that)

Regardless of how we put the pieces in our puzzle one thing is sure: There is no use in trying thousands of times to put a piece where it does not belong!!! If the panorama changed, you are in a different part of the puzzle, perhaps the one you don’t know, perhaps the one you are comfortable with.

Your experiences and knowledge are the pieces already in your puzzle. Would you take them out? No way. What is new? What needs to be added? What direction do you want to take?
At the end, the fun part is creating the puzzle, not finishing it.

Here is to your game!

Alicia

PS: I’ll be going on a world tour in April and May, to Jeddah and Dammam in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Houston, Guatemala, Caracas, Maracay, Santiago de Chile, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. If you are in any of these places, drop me a line and I’ll try to meet with you or to get you a discount ticket to the open events or an invitation to the private ones. More to come as I go along.

PS2: tomorrow is my birthday, couldn't find a better way to celebrate than having my dream of a world tour done! that piece was a hard one!