jeff shuck

Sitting here kind of puttering around. A friend took me golfing today, so I had to come in on a Friday night and catch up on some work and delete — I mean, read — all the emails that came in during the day. There were a lot of them today; everyone trying to get their crisis addressed before the long weekend, I guess.

I should probably go to bed, but I can never shake the feeling that on a Friday night I’m supposed to be up and moving. I’m barely up, let alone moving — but here I am.

I have been thinking a lot today about connections and missed connections. (The way I play golf, there is unfortunately a good amount of quality time to think while searching amongst tall grass, wading through water, etc.) There is no real difference between a good swing and a bad swing. I mean, a golf professional, or anyone good at golf for that matter, can point out the number of adjustments that impact a swing. But really, when you look at it, the adjustments are small as compared to the major force your muscles exert. The main movement in a good swing or a bad swing is exactly the same. It is the small adjustments that impact whether you are on the green or searching for your ball on the neighbor’s porch.

I really have no business trying to make golf analogies, but the point is that it is incredible to me how sometimes you can have 95%, or even 99% of something in place, but that the missing 1% is still too large to allow you to carry the day. I was talking to a dear friend yesterday about seeing life as a set of experiences that help you gather pieces of your puzzle. And you get enough of the pieces, you know what the picture is supposed to be for yourself. But if you are missing even 5% of the pieces — or just the 1% — the picture is marred, and in some way that is much worse than it was before you knew what the picture was. What I mean is, is it worse to not know what the picture is supposed to be, or to know what it is but to realize it is incomplete?

I’m not sure. Over the last six month I have made more progress figuring out what my picture is than ever before. And yet lately I have also become keenly aware of the pieces that are missing. And I cannot tell if it is emboldening to know the picture, or frustrating to see what is not there. And I know that it is heartbreaking to see for an instant what the entire, full picture is, and then watch the pieces fall out again.

Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Don’t be run so much by what you lack as by what you have already achieved,” and I’d like to think that the same thinking applies here. Maybe the whole point is to get a clear enough idea of what the picture is supposed to be so that you can create — by luck or force of will or relationship — the pieces that you are missing.

Maybe everyone’s puzzle is supposed to have pieces missing, and the point is how you go about drawing in the gaps. Drawing them in with vision, and determination, and of course, the major currencies of life: Hope and love.