BY NICOLA HARE
A few months ago,
I embarked on a new journey: solving Rubik’s cube. To say that the task was
trying would be an understatement; I spent at least 19 hours moving my hands
around to solve a damned cube. I remember sitting there, before I started, wondering
how hard it could possibly be, well, it’s safe to say that I found out. Through
blood, sweat and tears, an existential crisis and lack of encouragement from
friends, I finally solved Rubik’s cube.
Of course I was
beyond pleased with myself and what I had achieved and as I looked at the cube,
I couldn’t help but chuckle, completely amused by the situation. I wondered
what a loser I must be to be so thrilled at the prospect of solving a cube that
took from me 19 hours that I will never get back. It amused me that this cube
was taunting me, mocking the fact that I’d just spent 19 hours growling and
screaming in frustration because I couldn’t solve a simple puzzle.
After completing
Rubik’s cube and being content with myself for 24 hours, I noticed a difference
in my thought process. It began with things like accepting that things take
time and then I found myself applying a lot of life’s challenges to the
challenges I faced with Rubik’s cube. I was amused and amazed at the metaphor
that was Rubik’s cube.
The first metaphor
I wish to share: resilience. I
challenged myself to solve the cube within five minutes, it took some time but
eventually, I got there. You see, the thing about life is this; we often set
challenges for ourselves, we have goals or ambitions, we want to achieve
something that means something to us however, when it doesn’t work out the
first time, we have a tendency to call it quits. We give up, we procrastinate
and we soon convince ourselves that maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. I mean,
it didn’t work out the first time, so who is to say that it will work out when
you try again?
Well, who is to
say that it won’t? How are you to know that it would’ve taken another shot or
another chance if you do not try again and again. Resilience demands courage.
It took me five tries, after I’d learnt to solve the cube, to do it within five
minutes and now, an interesting fact about me at events is that I can solve
Rubik’s cube in two minutes.
Failure is an
interesting thing; not the failing part of course but rather what it says about
the person that you are. I’ve learnt that embracing failure is perhaps one of
our greatest weapons in life, our greatest tool at being successful. Failure
leads to discouragement, a deflated mind frame perhaps but imagine your
perspective if you were to accept that failure is a part of the process. There
would be no wasted time questioning your ability or your vision. To apply
yourself to something and assume that you will never fail is ridiculous to me
now but I hadn’t always known that. Not knowing that meant I spent a lot of
time thinking about why I couldn’t just get a break and less time on what was
coming next. I could not tell you the number of times I failed in my attempt to
solve Rubik’s cube, it could be 100 maybe 1000, the point is, I failed once, I
reassessed for a moment and tried another way until I became successful.
A favourite movie
of mine: The Pursuit of Happiness, had Will Smith’s character solve the cube in
seconds and I was amazed at the prospect. I had assumed by watching that I just
had to move my hands, be clever and all would be well. 19 hours later and well,
it wasn’t. There are steps to solving Rubik’s cube and unless you’ve attempted
to solve it, it is easy to assume that there isn’t a process to the madness. There
are steps that must be followed and one cannot come before the other.
We are often quick
to want to get to where we want to be. We look at those around us as I saw Will
Smith and we are consumed with this idea that it must happen now or it will not
happen at all but it’s important to know that each person’s journey will be
different. Paths will vary and to have more roads to take does not mean that
you will not reach the destination. You do not know what you must learn before
you can reach where it is you want to be and what you’ll often find is skipping
steps will likely lead to failure.
I saw how long it
took Will Smith to solve Rubik’s cube in its final shot, once mastered and
perfected. I was frustrated at the process when in truth, it is the process
that creates the final product. Comparisons are a threat to your success because
you stop paying attention to the road ahead of you when you become fixated with
another person’s journey. The steps are necessary, for growth, for betterment,
for success. Have patience and trust the process; you did not learn to run
before you could walk.
Funny, right? How
19 hours of frustration have now turned into a piece about how we should approach
life. My final metaphor of Rubik’s cube is; the concept of mastery. To be good
at something is easy, to be great at something takes work but to master, to
become a master of your craft takes strength, courage and it will not happen
overnight. You have to put in the work, you must practice continuously, you
must be brave enough to fail and you must trust the process. I promise you that
you will become frustrated and you will want to quit but to be successful is to
master your craft. A friend of mine recently said: “find your craft and master
it. People cannot fault excellence.”
Life is just a
complicated puzzle that needs solving and it may take months or years to truly
conquer what it is but to live without challenging what you know and stepping
away from what you think you know, is to not attempt to solve the cube. So, I
challenge you to solve Rubik’s cube and create your own metaphors.
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