A Tale of Two Puzzle Pieces
One piece—we’ll call her Ruth—is unhappy with the shape she’s been given. She sees another piece, Veronica, across the dinner table, who looks like models in shampoo commercials, drives a late model Saab, knows how to cook meatloaf exquisitely, loves waking up early to walk her Labradoodle that has hair instead of fur, and goes every afternoon to a hot yoga studio disguised as a Zen garden.
So Ruth begins to change her shape. She wants to be like Veronica. She shaves a corner here, duct tapes a bit of cardboard on there, tries hot yoga, hates it but pretends to like it because Veronica appears to like it. And because the Zen garden exterior keeps drawing her in.
Soon, the great puzzle-fitter-togetherer—we’ll call him Garth—returns to finish the puzzle. Garth stares down at the puzzle, a few empty spots here and there. The puzzle is almost complete—he always saves the best part, the last few pieces, for when he’s eating his Friday meatloaf dinner. He takes a bite of meatloaf, picks up Ruth, tries to fit her into a few spots, but she doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. So Garth, chewing thoughtfully, sets Ruth aside, picks up Veronica. Almost instantly, he locates where she goes. She slips nicely into her spot. The spot she was designed to fill. He swallows his bite and smiles.
The rest of the puzzle pieces eventually find their spots, too. All of them except Ruth. She doesn’t fit anywhere now—not since she tried to become like Veronica. Not since she traded in her ten-speed for a Saab. Not since she started wearing too much make up and one-inch eyelash extensions.
So Ruth sits all alone at the edge of the dinner table, next to Garth’s meatloaf dinner, as he stares sadly at the puzzle. The meatloaf turns to gravel in his mouth. He’s lost his appetite. Because the puzzle is incomplete. There is one, huge, empty spot and no piece to fill it. A tear rolls down Garth’s cheek.
The lesson?
Don’t make Garth cry. Be yourself.
Have you ever seen a poster of a famous painting? Which is worth more, the poster, or the original? You are a masterpiece.
Don’t be the rolled-up poster in a cardboard tube purchased from the tourist shop outside the museum next to the hot dog stand down the hall from the bathrooms and the crying kid asking for a toy dinosaur. Be the masterpiece people pay $25 a head to get into the museum to see, only to find out they have to pay another $10 to get into the room where you’re on display.
Be the masterpiece they lower into a ten foot concrete bunker when the place closes that’s guarded by red lasers and moving cameras.
Be that masterpiece. That’s the masterpiece you were made to be.
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