What I'm Learning from Puzzles

I love to go to Jigzone every morning and do the jigsaw puzzle of the day. One of the things I like about doing jigsaw puzzles on the computer is that ALL the pieces are there!

Some puzzles area easy. I can usually do them about half a minute under the average time. Great ego boost to start off the morning. Then there are others.

Some puzzles defy solution -- at least I think they do. But -- and I think this is critical to my defying what lies ahead as I get older -- I am forcing myself to go past the "giving up point," that place where I could do a couple of keystrokes and go back to my email. I dig deep and move a few more pieces around, and usually once I've done that, I know that I can solve the puzzle. It might have taken me longer than I wanted it to, but no one is watching over my shoulder.

So doing puzzles has acquainted me with the feeling of the "giving up point." In the time to come, I'll recognize that feeling and look for a few more parts of my problem to move around to work out the solution.

Just don't give me too many dark pieces!