I Am Not A Piece in the Puzzle

I have been a teacher for several years now and the saddest thing I have ever heard a student say is, “What I do doesn’t matter.”

Now, I am a walking version of a Disney Princess, as most of you know. So I could respond to this in a very “Snow White” manner in that Everyone makes a differences even a butterflies wing’s flap can cause a tree to fall on the other side of the woods. But that isn’t going to help anyone is it?

Life starts to get hard all the way back in pre-school when you learn that another kid has better blocks than you, or crayons if you are like me. And as much as I would like to say it gets better from there… well it doesn’t. Life actually gets worse believe it or not. You go elementary school where bullying starts to become an

issue and you figure out the difference between girls and boys and where you fit in with that. Middle School is next where we start to try hobbies and activities and most things we look like a fish out of water. Then High school comes along and everyone is singing Kumbaya and holding hands… We wish! It is all about the food chain, what you look like, who you date, the kind of grades you get, and lets not even get into stereo-typing. When we become an adult we think this will go away but we just find out that we are the "coffee getter" for that boss that never works but makes 10 times your salary.

Don’t we all feel that way? We are just “that guy”! We work so hard to never get any better and to only have our ideas and thoughts thrown away and stomped on by “bigger” people. You know the ones with the fancy blocks, I mean cars.

So how do you matter… I mean are we just one of a million or are we one in a million? So many times while growing up we are told that we are just one OF a million that we begin to believe it. We forget that we are special and that what we have really matters.

I want you to think of puzzle, when you dump out the piece there are a bunch and you never know where to start. We try to find that corner piece and in our search many get “thrown” to the side. Then we start looking for the side piece… everyone’s favorite right? More pieces get “thrown” out and any from the puzzle. But then you have the boarder… you know the pieces without the picture on them… then you start looking at all those pieces you have thrown aside and wonder if you should cheat and look at what the picture should look like on the box. But you pick up each of those pieces and you try to find them a home. Sometime you don’t find it right away because every piece is different and each piece has its special place. You would never throw a piece away because you couldn’t find right where it went this second because even if it doesn’t fit that minute or look like an “important” piece it fits into the big picture. Without each piece you won’t ever have a complete picture!

So before you say I don’t matter, I want you to think about how many pieces there are in a puzzle and realize that you are one IN a million! There is no picture without you!