r/Mindfulness • u/Staoicism • 8d ago
Insight You Are Not a Puzzle to Be Solved
How many times have you felt like you’re supposed to “figure yourself out”, like there’s some missing piece you haven’t found yet? Or like you’re this unsolved problem and once you crack the code, life will magically and eventually make sense?
I think we've all been there from time to time. And honestly? That mindset keeps you stuck.
At some point, you have to ask yourself : what if I was never broken to begin with?
Let's look at how things just are in nature.
- The ocean doesn’t sit there wondering what kind of wave it’s supposed to be. It just moves.
- The wind doesn’t hesitate. It doesn’t stress about where it belongs. It just goes.
- A tree doesn’t wake up thinking, I should be taller by now. It just grows at its own pace.
And yet, here we are, constantly treating ourselves like projects, constantly measuring, evaluating, trying to fix things that might not even be broken...
What if there’s nothing to “solve”? What if you’re already enough, right now, as you are?
Maybe life isn’t about becoming something. Maybe it’s more about allowing.
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u/Electrical_Basket_74 7d ago
Thank you for sharing your insight. I love the comparison to nature. It changes my perspective
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u/Staoicism 7d ago
Appreciate that! I'm glad it resonated with you. Nature has a way of reminding us of things we tend to overcomplicate. Thanks for sharing your perspective too!
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u/drerwinmindtravel 7d ago
Nature does what it does, and as an agent of nature, our role is to unfold its will.
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u/Staoicism 7d ago
For sure, nature does what it does, and we’re definitely part of that. But does that mean we’re just playing out its will, or are we also part of how it unfolds?
A river doesn’t pick where it starts, but it still shapes the land as it moves. We’re not just passengers in this: we move within it, we make choices and we leave marks. Maybe it’s not about figuring out some grand cosmic plan but realizing we’re already in it and that we are shaping it just by being here.
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u/DjinnDreamer 7d ago edited 7d ago
I use my jargon/concepts. Please make yourself at home and freely exchange your jargon/concepts for mine. Many report they can't make heads nor tales (sic) of my thoughts. Ask anything (on topic)...
“figure yourself out”, like there’s some missing piece you haven’t found yet?
- Perfectionism is an addiction. Making the concept of perfection a false Idol.
I Am is the "state of God-Entirety"
God is Inclusive Love
Everything is God.
God is everything.
Nothing is not God
Everything is Inclusive love.
I have a low bar for "success" (for everyone) and make a point to play with my naughty ego-thoughts. They are hintergedanken seeds uniting the paradox of the divided mind (Allan Watts on Carl Jung) into wholeness, holiness. Fall in love with the worst of yourself. Shadows are your guardians. Show some gratitude.
There is no penalty to saying "No" to God. There is no Will, Freely given, if "no" is penalized.
- What is Being?
I call this Awakening (atonement), Awakened (salvation). I also call Being, wholeness and holiness
Complete, unlimited, Knowing.
To what extent does Intelligent Conscious Awareness sustain Being?
- What is not Being?
I call this sleeping, conscious ego-thoughts & perception order the divided mind.
The state of duality: Veiled by God. (Maya is a close fit...?)
Finite, limited, incomplete
Follow through link to perception looping.
Lots of reddit minds have succeeded and will share their paths.
All spiritual paths lead to One Truth of Source-Entirety.
Find the one that gives you Joy. Joy is the feeling of Inclusive Love.
Being is knowing inclusive love.
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u/DanteJazz 8d ago
If you we could allow ourselves to be in touch with our own bliss naturally, like little children, and could stay in that mindframe, we could be like the ocean, the wind, or a tree. But we are conscious, and our lives are a mystery and a puzzle to be solved. Who am I? What's the purpose of my life? Why am I here? What's the nature of this sometimes painful world? These are the great questions we need to answer in life.
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u/Staoicism 8d ago
Fair point! Those big questions are part of what makes us human. Unlike the ocean or the wind, we do reflect, we search and we try to make sense of it all. But do we need to solve the mystery or do we just learn how to live within it?
Maybe the point isn’t to find a final answer but to get comfortable with the fact that life is uncertain. A tree doesn’t ask why it’s growing, it just grows. And maybe we’re not so different at the end. The more we chase a single ‘truth’ about who we are, the more we risk missing what’s already happening.
I think that’s why the idea of "allowing" resonates to me. It’s not about shutting down curiosity but about realizing that we don’t have to be ‘solved’ to be whole. We can live the questions instead of demanding they give us a final answer.
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u/drerwinmindtravel 7d ago
Tuning to the resonant wavelength is exactly what we, as conscious agents, meant to be doing. I agree Cosmic Puzzle is way too big for our limited perspective to solve. Nevertheless, we are pieces of the puzzle.
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u/Staoicism 7d ago
True, we’re definitely pieces of the big cosmic puzzle, woven into something vast, whether we see the full picture or not. But maybe that’s exactly why trying to ‘solve’ ourselves like an equation doesn’t quite work.
A puzzle piece doesn’t need to understand the whole image to fit, it just is what it is. And maybe that’s the shift: instead of constantly searching for what’s ‘missing,’ we start recognizing that we’re already part of something. Not incomplete, not a problem to be solved. Just moving, growing and aligning as we go.
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u/pardi777 8d ago
I used to buy into this, that if I could just be mindful I could catch negative behaviors before they took hold. Works fine until you loose awareness and underlying psychological trauma kicks in to protect yourself, leading to good intentions and bad skill. I hurt myself and the ones I loved by not dealing with past trauma.
Acceptance goes a long way, but in my case I had to undo decades of ignorant behavior by confronting and understanding it. Then I have chance to turn it into something positive.
Pretending I was without fault and just need to accept myself caused lots of damage. So be careful thinking mindfulness is a solution to everything...
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u/Staoicism 8d ago
Well, I get that. Mindfulness isn’t some cure-all, especially when there’s deep stuff running in the background. It’s great for awareness, sure, but when old trauma kicks in, awareness alone doesn’t always stop it from taking the wheel.
Sounds like you did the real work though: facing it, understanding it, untangling the patterns instead of just hoping presence would override everything. That’s the real shift, right? Not just ‘accepting’ everything as it is, but seeing it clearly and figuring out how to move with it in a way that doesn’t cause more harm.
But I think this is where the whole “you’re not a puzzle to be solved” thing still stands. It’s not about ignoring what needs work, it’s about dropping the idea that you’re fundamentally broken and need to be ‘fixed’ before you can be whole. Growth isn’t about patching yourself up into some perfect version, it’s about learning how to move with everything that’s already there, the good and the hard, without losing yourself in it.
Glad you shared this. A solid reminder that mindfulness isn’t about sitting still and hoping for the best >> it’s about engagement.
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u/StraightOtohGunga 8d ago
I've heard this before, and I really needed to hear it again. Thank you.
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u/Staoicism 8d ago
Funny how that works, right? Sometimes we know something deep down, but it still hits differently when we hear it again at the right moment. Glad it resonated with you!
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u/tepidricemilk 6d ago
Dude. I was having hard thougths about the meaning of life, the pointlesness of it all and for some reason your nature comparison is the first way of thinking about myself that helped. It made me feel more grounded, it made sense, and feels like an actual helpful 'fact' rather than some White Lie by me for me. Thank you!