Table of Contents
Introduction
What story do you tell yourself about your life?
Do you have one?
You need one.
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Gathering Tiles
Think of your life as a mosaic.
Every day of your life is a tile in the mosaic of your life. At the end of each day you have a new tile. What will you do with it? Leave it on the floor in dusty pile? Let someone else steal them? Or will you craft them into a beautiful piece of art?
Some of the tiles are going to be ugly. Some tiles may be broken or misshapen. But it doesn’t matter because it’s the whole picture that is important.
Focal Point
What will your story be about? What do you want your mosaic to look like? Start with the focal point.
It’s easy to find the beautiful tiles. What are yours? A relationship? A career? An award? Take note of them and begin to craft a story around them. How do they relate to one another?
Background Tiles
You can arrange the tiles of your life into a mosaic that you like. What story will you tell about your life? You may not get to choose all of the tiles. You may love some tiles and hate some others. But they are yours and you have the opportunity to turn them into something beautiful.
One of the tiles I have but don’t like is from the day I was on campus for the shooting at Virginia Tech in April 2007.
I don’t like the tile. I don’t want to look at the tile. I don’t like to think about the tile. But while I add it to my mosaic I don’t have to make it the focal point. It can be in the background.
You can choose which of your tiles go in the background. They are part of your mosaic but you don’t have to focus on them.
Contrasting Tiles
Contrasting colors can be used to create something beautiful. So too can your life experiences be contrasted with one another.
My ugly Virginia Tech shooting tile is contrasted with my perseverance in overcoming the mental weight of it tile. Contrasted with completing my degree tile. Contrasted with my appreciation for life tile.
Be Your Own Artist
You might have noticed I called it the Virginia Tech shooting and not the Virginia Tech massacre. I have chosen to call it the shooting because I don’t like the sensationalized TV news term massacre. I am the artist who is creating my mosaic. I am making the mosaic for me and the ones I love. I don’t get to choose my tiles but I get to control how I think about my tiles. I choose how they are designed into something beautiful.
Finding New Tiles
So far you have constructed your mosaic with the tiles from your past. What about the tiles in your future? Will you let those tiles be decided for you? Or will you design your mosaic and work towards the tiles you want?
What tiles do you need to complete your mosaic?
Building Your Mosaic
Some questions to help you assemble your mosaic:
- Which are the tiles you like?
- What will be your focal point?
- Which tiles are the most valuable?
- Which are your ugly tiles?
- How can you contrast your ugly tiles with your beautiful ones?
- Maybe your beautiful mosaic already exists, but it got hidden by layers of dirt. Is it time to rediscover it?
- Have you shown anyone your mosaic?
Conclusion
We don’t get to choose all of our life’s tiles but we have the opportunity to arrange them into a beautiful mosaic. We can choose what our focal point is, what will be hidden in the background space and what tiles we will get in the future.
“Your life as a mosaic” is not my original idea but I hope you have enjoyed my spin on it. I’d love to hear if this post helped think positively about your life, your relationships and your career. Please email me (matt@wavewalkerdsp.com) if you’re willing to share.
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