Constructing the Bigger Picture

My ego was splintered.

I sat in my college lectures feeling aggrieved, not wanting to hear what the teacher had to say about financial statements. I felt like a cat getting scrubbed. I wanted 'Joshua St Clair' to work out so badly, but it just didn't. Thinking about my failure was like taking shots of whiskey.

I had already adventured far and wide - hacking through the jungles in Queensland and conquering the mountains in Queenstown. I must have accidentally convinced myself I was the king! But it was humbling to realise that I was no more than a little squire whose greaves were too big for him.

It took me a few days to accept the fact that 6 months of college still loomed above me. My dream of freedom was still half a year away, and the only way there was through a military obstacle course. But the true warrior does not shy away from a challenge. He charges in like a rhinoceros.

I started to chew the fat of my circumstance, and correct my attitude. It was just not the right time for Joshua St Clair yet, and I was starting to recognise that this was actually a good thing. I still had a lot more growing to do as an artist and as a human being, and this excited me.

My life purpose and my brand 'Joshua St Clair' needed to undergo some editing - I was only on the first draft. So I sought council in what I considered my roost - the Queenstown gardens. Sitting on park benches, I watched the world go by as if it were a snow globe. Earny was blowing on his pipe, and the waves were coming to embrace the pebbled beaches. It was so pleasant. With the trees doing yoga around me and the breeze patting me on the back, I turned inwards and started to self reflect on the matter.


My fundamental flaw was impatience. This was like a hole at the bottom of a teacup. I was thinking far too small, and far too short term. To expect to just suddenly appear like a knight in shining gold armour to the world was madness. I had no foundation, my skills were still weak, and I didn't have a true vision for where I wanted to take 'Joshua St Clair'. I was fixated on the cracks of one step, and I had lost sight of the entire staircase.

Everything was put into context when I realised that Joshua St Clair was not some destination - it was a journey; a story I was living and telling. I started to take deep breaths, filling my lungs with the fresh mountain air. My initial efforts to get Joshua St Clair up and running were not in vain. I was just hopping onto the first lily pad of a hundred lily pads. In fact, this was the most important step to take - the first one - because now I was officially committed to crossing the pond. If I was going to reach the other bank without falling in and getting mangled by alligators, I would need a mindset that would keep me balanced the whole way. It was a case of developing my long term thinking and constructing the bigger picture.

As you may have noticed, I love metaphors - I use them to strengthen my understanding of important elements of life. And in regards to constructing the bigger picture of Joshua St Clair, the metaphor I generated has helped me greatly and will continue to be my guiding lantern.

I was building a puzzle. 

With my initial attempts at Joshua St Clair, I was trying to assemble a puzzle I didn't even have the pieces to. Heck, I didn't even know what the final image looked like! In reality, all I had was the 4 corner pieces and a handful of border pieces. I had obtained them during my adventures on Hamilton Island, and they were the basis from which the frame could be built.

I became aware that I could consciously shape the final image of the puzzle, and the pieces would materialise in accordance to that specific image. My actions today would determine how dazzling the final puzzle would be in 30 years time. I wanted it to be proud and majestic like a king tiger; evocative like a flirtatiously colourful parrot. The ultimate legacy awaited my keen spirit.

Thinking about it this way transmuted my defeat into excitement. It was candy for my adventurous soul. My focus now became about visualising the final image of the puzzle and then going out and finding the pieces. They were tucked away in the mountains, folded into the forests and perched on the top of cairns, all waiting patiently to be discovered.

It was a call for adventure, and I was ready!

Suddenly, a pile of papers slapped the desk in front on me, and my eyes flickered open. The last words I wanted to see were staring at me in bold letters: 'BUSINESS OPERATIONS PLAN'. My suit and tie were squeezing the breath out of me as I opened my bag and slipped it in with other such papers as 'INTERNSHIP REPORT' and 'LITERATURE REVIEW'. I gazed out the window, and the mountains were whispering my name. But I couldn't hear their invitations, because the college work was shrieking at me.

And so there I was, knee-deep in assignments I didn't want to do, and sinking. My dream was right in front of me, but I was stuck in quicksand right in the middle of Queenstown, tied down in the Adventure capital of the world. I took another swig of whiskey. And another...