You probably know that famous saying about not seeing the forest from the trees. Perspective is crucial. When you see the thyme on the picture above you might presume that there is thyme, thyme, and more thyme. But zooming out you discover that there is more to the wild thyme, that the pictures is actually not about wild thyme at all, but that the wild thyme is merely a background for the stone heart.
You may have seen one of the famous zooming out videos, where the perspective changes as you go up, up, up. The details keep receding and every new close-up soon enough grows smaller and becomes background, until it too disappears, then makes way for yet another perspective at yet a higher level.
A few days ago NY Times reporter Nicholas Kristof wrote a beautiful article on how 2017 was the best year ever. Huh? Really? You doubt that it was? I devoured the article and felt so uplifted. You have to read it. Perspective is everything. We tend to get so bogged down in details and pettiness. Granted, we don't necessarily have the statistics available for as sweeping an assessment of our state of affairs as the one Kristof provides. But really, let's acknowledge how much better things have become. Let's acknowledge how distorted our view can be if we stay in the trenches. Come up for air every once in a while to get inspired and to readjust your perspective. And may 2018 be even better than 2017, as Kristof hopes to find out.
