Good morning! Have you ever taken a digital photo and zoomed in on it until all you could see were a bunch of little squares? As you look this closely at a picture you will find that it’s difficult to tell that it’s even a picture. When you are so close you just see a bunch of simple squares of different shades and colors with no apparent order or meaning. It’s not until you zoom out from the picture that you actually see the image. Here is an example. Can you tell what this is?
Now here is the entire photo:
The close-up was of my face. I’m the baby in my father’s arms. What a difference it makes to step back and take in the whole picture.
My hike this morning reminded me of this. I live in my little house on my little street and that becomes my world. Sometimes I forget there is a whole big world out there. When I go hiking in the morning I go up the side of the mountain by my home and suddenly I have this magnificent view of my whole community. I see things I never could have seen at the street level. There are ponds in my community that I didn’t know existed. There are neighborhoods, golf courses, and churches that I didn’t know were there. It’s a whole different perspective when I get the Big Picture from on the mountain.
You’ve heard of the saying:
You can’t see the forest for the trees.
Sometimes we get that way with our own lives. We are so into our own little world that we don’t realize that there is a whole, big world out there. We are blinded by the things that are so close to us.
I find that I periodically need to get away from the nitty gritty details of my life. I need to step back and look at the Big Picture to get a true perspective of life.
One of the ways my wife Lisa and I do this is to go away to an educational conference every year or so. It is held in another city several hours from our home. It’s called Education Week and as the name implies, it is a week long conference and is held at a university. They have classes all day long each day on subjects like marriage, parenting, money management, stress management, journal writing – you name it and they have a class for it. We stay there the whole week and take all kinds of classes together, taking voracious notes in each one.
Some people think we’re strange to do this with our precious time, yet we have found it well worth it. And every time we have done it and are on our way home, I always get the feeling that I have been lifted high above the detailed cares of the world and have a grand, panoramic view of life. It helps me get my life in perspective.
I suggest that you find ways to step away from the details of your life and allow yourself to see the Big Picture. Take a break. Go on a needed vacation. Retreat to the mountains or the beach or the desert and take time to think and ponder. Let’s not miss the beautiful forest while we are staring at the roots of the trees.
Thank you.
Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson