Sudoku, for those new to it, is a puzzle where a player fills the missing numbers in a grid of partially filled numbers. The numbers from 1 to 9 must all occupy, without repetition, each row, each column and each of the smaller grids that make up the whole grid. (You don't have to understand this to read this post). It is a Japanese word that means ‘single numbers only.' Though it uses numbers, it is a purely logical game and no knowledge of math is needed.
Gopal went to a camp where everyone was given a sheet of Sudoku puzzle and half an hour to solve it. But he didn't immediately get to work on it. He said, ‘Ah if only the 2 was here and the 7 was there, I could have solved this easily.' He went around peeping into the puzzles of the others and complained, ‘Yours is so simple compared to mine, if only I had yours I would have finished by now.' He then lamented, ‘This is not fair, my numbers suck, why did I get such a messed up puzzle and everyone else has gotten simple ones.' And when the bell rang to mark the end of time, he hadn't entered a single number!
Solving puzzles was not Ria's cup of tea. Still, when she was given the paper she figured she didn't have any options. She carefully went studying one box after another. She found one where only one number could fit in, as all others were taken either in the rows or in the columns. Then another and another. In some boxes, two numbers could fit, so she wrote them both down. For some boxes, there were just too many options, so she left them for later. And as she made progress, she could come back to these squares and fill them. Much to her surprise, she was all done in some time. And she was also one of the first to finish!
It is obvious here that Gopal is being silly, while Ria has taken the correct approach. But when it comes to life, we don’t realise this so easily.
You may have heard that life is a box of chocolates, or a battle to be won, or a rat race where we have to finish first. Here, I am telling you, it is like a puzzle of Sudoku. There are the givens—your current situation. You have a couple of days for the interview and you haven't prepared, you are sick and you forgot to take your medicine, you are now in a new team at work and have to report to someone you don't like. The givens are like the numbers already filled into the Sudoku boxes. The givens are the things you cannot change.
Then there are the empty boxes. These are the things you can do to fill the gaps in the givens to make your life complete. But the reason we don’t see those solutions is we act like Gopal. We keep wishing the givens were different! If only I had not chosen this course, if only I had more money, if only I had a better body, is how we think. We keep comparing our circumstances with those of others. She has such a better husband, he lives so close to office….
Just like every Sudoku grid has a solution, however daunting it may seem at first, there will always be something we can do to improve your lives. How can we say this? There are ample instances in history where people have gone on to lead really meaningful lives from very adverse situations. Professor Stephen Hawking became one of the most influential scientists in the world in spite of the fact that most of his body was paralysed due to nervous disease. The Wright brothers were just a pair of bicycle mechanics, but they beat large, heavily-funded corporations to invent the first aeroplane. More recently and closer to home, Yuvraj Singh played a key role in India winning the Cricket World Cup and was awarded man of the series, even while cancerous tumours grew and spread in his lungs.
How were these people able to be so courageous? Because the approach they took to life was the same that Ria took to her Sudoku. They did not let the givens bother them but focused on what they could do. What we glean from these people is that if they could overcome such extreme odds, we can lead a complete life too. The Sudoku of our lives also certainly has a solution. Just don't worry about the numbers already filled in but see what you can do about the empty boxes!
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If you liked your life compared to Sudoku, then hear this: I have a new book where I look at life like a deep, dense jungle. What life lessons could be hidden there? Check out ‘The Happy Fruit Adventures.’ now to find out.
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