Monday August 25th, 2025 by D. Paul Graham

Ever curious and always amused by the quirks of life, join me, D. Paul Graham, each Monday for more M5T ponderings.

**“Frameworks of Connection” photo by D. Paul Graham / imageGRAHAM, llc. Austin-Bergstrom International circa 2023, unknown artist**

Novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez tells the story of a man trying to solve the world's problems, when his young son comes into the room and asks if he can help. Impatient to get on with his work, the father takes a map of the world, rips it into little pieces, and gives it to the boy, telling him he can help by piecing the world back together. The boy doesn't have a clue what the world looks like but takes the pile of paper off to his room.

A couple of days later the boy rushes into his father's study. “Dad. Dad,” he says, “I've put the world back together.” The boy proudly held out the shreds that had been meticulously taped together. His father asks how he did it. The boy turned the map over. On the back was a picture of a person. The son said, “I put the person back together and then when I turned it over, the world was back together.” This morning’s M5T looks at putting pieces together.

1. LIFE. MAYBE THE PUZZLE ISN’T OUT THERE. So much time in life is spent trying to fix the big problems of the economy, the politics, and the world itself. But often, the key to solving them lies much closer than we think. Like the boy in the story, maybe the world isn’t fixed by starting with the world at all once. It may simply start with one person. When we’re whole, we see clearer, we love fuller, and the world shifts around us.

2. WORK: SOLVE THE ‘WRONG’ SIDE FIRST. How many times at work do we tape ourselves to a puzzle of endless pieces? The big strategy, the restructuring, the endless “world maps” of our careers and industries. But if we turn the page over, we might find a simpler answer. We may just find a picture of humanity. Work that centers the person, the customer, the colleague, and yourself, ends up reassembling the world more effectively than another spreadsheet, pitch deck, meeting, or presentation.

3. FAITH: SEEING THE INVISIBLE PICTURE. Faith isn’t about ignoring the broken pieces. Faith isn’t naiveté. It’s trusting that there’s a larger design, a bigger purpose than we can see. Even when the world looks ripped apart, faith moves us to put the person back together believing that the world will follow. Even though don’t know the end-result of how the world fits together, we have faith, that at some point, it will all. That faith allows us to believe in possibilities, in repair, in resurrection, and in eternity.

4. TRANSFORMATION: CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Transformation often happens when we turn something over. A new perspective, a reversal, a flipping of the script. The boy didn’t need to know what the world looked like. He just started with what he did recognize and understand. A person. Transformation isn’t about solving every piece at once, it’s about knowing where to begin.

5. LEGACY: TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATION. In Marquez’s story, it’s the son that solves the puzzle of the world, not the father. The father, absorbed in grand solutions, handed off what he thought was an impossible task. But his son, with fresh eyes and a simple approach, found an answer. Legacy often works this way. Legacy isn’t about fixing everything in our own lifetime, but about planting ideas and passing along values that equip the next generation to see solutions we can’t. The real inheritance we leave isn’t money, possessions, or even finished work. It’s perspective. The belief that when the world looks torn apart, you can flip it over and start with the person. It’s that wisdom that rebuilds wholeness, piece by piece, resulting in a world mended in ways we could never imagine.

Here's to a week of piecing together that picture of yourself, or that person that is right in front of you. And to being surprised, when you flip the picture over, with how much more clarity you see the world.

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Paul continues to try to try and tape the person together before the world around him.

Please share this with someone you think would like to step-up their Mondays. Thank you!

You can reach Paul by email at dpg@imagegraham.com

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