“THE MISSING PIECE”

I love the Shel Silverstein book called “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.” And no, its not about how to have a great orgasm or Oprah. Well, maybe you could extrapolate that if you REALLY wanted to… Anyway, the story goes something like this…

“The missing piece sat alone…waiting for someone to come along and take it somewhere. Some fit, but could not roll. Others could roll, but did not fit. One didn’t know a thing about fitting. And another didn’t know a thing about anything. One was too delicate. Pop! One put it on a pedestal…and left it there. Some had too many pieces missing. Some had too many pieces, period. It learned to hide from the hungry ones. More came. Some looked too closely. Others rolled right by without noticing. hi? It tried to make itself more attractive…It didn’t help. It tried being flashy but that just frightened away the shy ones. At last one came along that fit just right. (rolling along happily) But all of the sudden… the missing piece began to grow! And grow! ‘I didn’t know you were going to grow.’ ‘I didn’t know either,’ said the missing piece. ‘Bye…’ ‘I’m lookin’ for my missing piece, one that won’t increase…’ *sigh* And then one day, one came along who looked different. 

‘What do you want of me?’ asked the missing piece. ‘Nothing.’ ‘What do you need from me?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Who are you?’ asked the missing piece. ‘I am the Big O,’ said the Big O. [Big O proceeds to tell the missing piece that it can't roll with it, but maybe it can learn to roll on its own.]The missing piece was alone again. For a long time it just sat there. Then… slowly… it lifted itself up on one end… and flopped over, Then lift… pull… flop… it began to move forward…and soon its edges began to wear off… and its shape began to change…and then it was bumping instead of flopping… and then bouncing instead of bumping… and then it was rolling instead of bouncing… and it didn’t know where and it didn’t care. It was rolling!”

I love that story. For its simplicity and truth. When we expect another to complete us — it undermines our ability to be a whole person in the relationship. Thereby building a relationship on a shaky foundation (the missing piece trying to roll with the one who “fit just right.”) After reading this story and comparing it to Jerry Maguire’s passionate declaration of “You complete me!” I really wonder how things ended up for Jerry and Dorothy after the cameras stopped rolling.  Perhaps our insistence that someone else can make us feel complete/happy/fulfilled/supported/pretty/powerful/strong/handsome/loved… may be a huge factor in why so many relationships fail. Very simply, its better when we can roll with someone instead of trying to get them to help us roll where we want to go.