It struck me today that building a farm, building a life, or building yourself is not unlike putting together a puzzle or building a kit. You have many pieces and many choices and only some fit together with specific others. The problem is your kit does not come with instructions and there is no puzzle box to look at to know where the pieces go. Some people use the bible or some other religious text for instruction. Some look a their parents or a business associate or mentor and try to line their pieces up to match how that other person's pieces work together.
Some people go through their whole lives never connecting the pieces so they live their entire existence as just a big old broken mixed up mess- lacking direction or purpose and just chugging along. Some people try to force pieces that don't go together together and similarly end up with unhappy results - never really fitting in, never really excelling at anything.
I wonder every day how my puzzle is coming together. I think about the people I have met; walked with and lost; and those I am still sharing my life with; and those I am yet to meet. Was my purpose in being created to tip someone in a cafe last week?;maybe it was to sit with an ill friend some years back; maybe it is to someday be a grandpa and spoil some grandchildren.. If it was to leave that tip -how do I know I did it right - did I leave enough , too much perhaps and my ill friend perhaps I left too soon or didn't say the right things and will I ever be around my children again - much less grandchildren. I'm not alone - we all struggle to some degree with these self doubts and apprehensions.
I believe in a very stretchy universe where mistakes are tolerated and the rest of the world bends to make up for them. My universe has no square corners, no perfectly straight lines, and its Okay to be left of center so long as there isn't someone coming in the other lane. I live in a world of good enough and that's just me. Your good enough and mine doesn't have to be the same. How long is a piece of string? that depends on what you measure it with. The smaller the units the longer the string. If you have a string that is about 100 feet long and measure it by stretching it across a parking lot you may find that it is 10 parking spaces long. Measure it on a tile floor to find it to be a little over 100 tiles long, measure it against a tightly stretched chain link fence you may find it to be 612 links long , measure it with a surveyor's tape measure and you will find it to be 101ft and 3 inches Measure it with a laser and it reports 101ft 3.5996 inches. Now if you were to take a single strand of silk and run it over each tiny bump, twist and turn along the top of the string and then weigh the piece of silk and compare the weight of the silk to the weight of a given length of silk you would find the string to be 101ft 4.7643219 inches.Note how the string has grown. Given infinitely smaller measurements the string would grow infinitely long.
Now look at your life, its a series of years -good ones and bad ones; a series of months -cold, warm , working , out of work; a series of weeks- lonely or filled it people you love; a series of days-well rested or tired, depressed or upbeat; a series of hours busy or resting, driving or climbing or having fun or being miserable or not being very present at all - being distracted; a series of minutes -being rushed or being relaxed, being concerned or being obsessed or being apathetic; a series of seconds - being appreciated or being forgotten, being present or being absent. How many absent seconds slip into each day? How many distracted hours slip not each week. How much time is wasted and how much counts. Take 15 seconds and stare at a clock watch the seconds tick away and think of each breath you breath each beat of your heart, Why where you given that breath and those heartbeats. What is the reason for you to be alive those 15 seconds? Did you waste them by watching the clock-- it was just 15 seconds.
Should I have left a bigger tip- should I have lingered longer with my friend? How do all those decisions and who I was at each moment sum up and shake down to spell who I am and what kind of life I have lived at the end? What if the universe does have straight edges and square corners and I just didn't try hard enough. Who gets to judge? What if a man lived a pure, giving, and sin free life for 20 years and then became greedy and stole and was evil in umpteen different ways the last month before he died in an accident. Is that man condemned for eternity What if he was evil itself murdered, stole, and was a plague on the world for 20 years and found religion and sanctity in prison two weeks before his execution. Is he to be rewarded or punished? Who gets to choose the size of the yardstick? Is it seconds, minutes, years, decades - how many times have you gone to a funeral to hear someone say " He was good man for three score and six but then he became a Scoundrel and a cheat for seven fortnights."
This is the kind of stuff I think about when I am working - I try to stay in the present and use each second but sometimes I use a different yardstick. That's what it takes sometimes to make the pieces fit - or at least come close enough to fitting.
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