Missing Puzzle Piece

[Small on Purpose - V]

Don’t buy a puzzle from a thrift store. Ever.
I’m a patron of thrift stores, for a lot of things, but puzzles are not one of them.

Puzzling is one of those activities where the completion is not merely the last step in a long line of equally important steps; the final piece is infinitely more valuable than the others in that it gives all the others meaning, purpose, finality. A thrift store increases your chance of not having a final piece at least 10x. If you multiply that by the value of the final piece—by the way, the missing piece is necessarily the final piece!—your odds of dissatisfaction are immeasurably high. Why take the risk?

And get this: the final piece is only 1/1000th of the puzzle. It’s a tiny fraction of the whole. It’s a blip. A speck. One piece! But because of the way it’s situated, it remains the most valuable.

The goal is not always growth. It’s not always getting a bigger piece of the pie (or puzzle). The goal is being situated in a way that offers meaning, purpose, or finality.

Stay small. Become more important.
(And don’t buy puzzles from thrift stores.)