What If Our Problems Were Puzzles

I don't enjoy playing video games much, but I love playing puzzle-based games.

Monument Valley and Old Man's Journey are the few games I've played for more than five minutes and even completed the entire game.

There's something soothing about being curious, trying to figure out the next move in a puzzle game, being momentarily frustrated that anything I try doesn't work, and then the rewarding feeling when it all comes together.

Jigsaw puzzles evoke the same kind of feelings and emotions.

You start with a reference picture and understand the field. You now have a mission to complete; the tools are the puzzle pieces before you.

The objective is simple: assemble each puzzle piece in the correct order and watch a lovely painting or photo come together as you go.

You start by picking a piece from the heap and figuring out where it goes:

The first move is tricky.

You have maybe over a hundred pieces to put together, and this is only the first one. And you have no frame of reference to match this piece against other than the photo of the completed puzzle.

Nevertheless, you don't get intimidated. Instead, you're focused on the job. You start with what you have and successfully place the first puzzle piece in an empty frame:

You've made your first move, but there's much more to do.

You then pick another piece from the heap that fits beside the puzzle block you've already placed on the board:

Turn by turn, you do the same; pick a matching piece from the heap and position it on the board to complete the puzzle one step further.

Things are going well, and you can see one corner of the board match the reference photo you have:

Then, it gets challenging.

You pick a few pieces from the heap, and they all look alike.

You're now in a portion of the puzzle whether individual blocks are zoomed in portions of a non-distinct area of the puzzle — like a cloudless sky with only minor variation in colour gradients:

You try fitting a couple of potential matches on the board, and while a piece looks like a close match, the resulting picture doesn't quite add up.

Your version of the puzzle is slightly different from the reference.

It's frustrating to keep trying options, but you don't give up. You step back and look at the big picture.

You have the puzzle completed up to a portion, and while you're now stuck in a conundrum, there are still blocks that can be distinctly identified:

Instead of fruitlessly trying to solve a portion that seems impossible now, you figure it's better to divert your efforts to solving a different part of the puzzle — maybe a different corner.

Your pace picks up again. You're unblocked, and now you have a puzzle that's not quite the entire picture but is taking shape:

While seeing the entire puzzle completed is rewarding, these minor milestones, where portions of the puzzle come to life, are no less rewarding.

You think:

Wow, this is coming together!

The journey brings joy.

You're halfway through, and you notice the parts of the puzzle you were struggling with before might now be easier to solve.

You now have fewer loose pieces in your heap than last time. Fewer options to choose from make your job easier.

Also, as you've made your way through parts of the board, your frame of reference has strengthened. You now have both sides of a missing puzzle block already placed:

It's easier to pick the correct puzzle block from the remaining heap by identifying how it should look on its edges to fit the space on the board.

Things are going well, and you feel confident about solving the entire thing, and then you hit another roadblock.

One of the pieces you placed on the board identifying it to be the correct piece doesn't quite look right alongside its neighbours:

You realise you have incorrectly placed one or two puzzle pieces on the board.

But it doesn't ruin anything. The pieces are not cemented, and the placements are not final. You have room to fix the error.

So, you take out the misplaced piece and try other pieces that might fit the description until you finally find a piece that does, and it completes the section:

It takes a while; it tests your patience and cognition, but you've finally arrived.

You now have one piece remaining in the heap and precisely one space on the board.

Like placing a cherry on top of a cake, you meticulously place this remaining block on the board to complete the puzzle.

The puzzle has been solved.

What if instead of seeing a problem on our hands as an impending crisis, we saw it as a puzzle we need to solve?

A crisis drives the brain into a panicked fight-or-flight mode. A puzzle makes it curious and analytical.

When a problem appears, you get a lay of the land and treat it as a puzzle you must solve to move ahead. The situation becomes less intimidating and more manageable.

As with a puzzle, you approach the problem one piece at a time. You know the end result, identify the logical steps to get there and take a step towards that goal — like placing the first puzzle piece on the board.

With every action, you see the problem less as a mountain you can't climb and more as a trek you know you can complete. As you see more parts of the problem handled, the rewarding feeling floats you forward.

When you get to a challenging phase of your problem and none of your ideas work, you don't give up. Instead, you move to an independent part of the problem to solve — a different corner of the puzzle.

Upon gaining ground in a different portion, with renewed enthusiasm and deeper knowledge about the problem, you return to the parts of the problem that had previously seemed too challenging to solve.

You see any mistake not as a permanent setback. You treat it as a wrongly placed puzzle piece, which you can take out anytime and try better options.

And before you know it, you've tackled the last part of your grand problem.

The problem is handled, the crisis averted, and the puzzle is solved.

The whole thing transformed from an immovable roadblock to a game you're curious to play and win the moment you saw the crisis as a puzzle.

The next time there's a problem, ask yourself:

What if this is a puzzle I can solve?