Seeing the Forest

I've recently been thinking about that expression "cannot see the forest for the trees" and what it means. Sometimes when you concentrate on the minute, insignificant details of a problem, you lose sight of the overall picture. In other words, you focus on the unimportant, rather than the important. (Very easy to do!)

Sometimes you can be going along in life, just minding your business and living normal day after normal day when something comes along to derail your life from the "normal track." A friend of mine found out that her 11-year-old daughter had a tumor on the optic nerve in her eye a few days before Christmas. For the past six months my friend has been taking her daughter to chemotherapy treatments every week; definitely not something she ever expected to be doing. Or I recently found out that one of my movie theater co-workers from back in the day was diagnosed with breast cancer at the young age of 29. It's been my experience that you know "bad things happen" to people when they become disabled, develop diseases, etc., but you never expect it to happen to YOU!

My personal experience with being being derailed from the normal track was being in a car accident and becoming permanently disabled at the age of 19. When I became paralyzed I lost a lot: the physical use of my body, the ability to breathe on my own, the ability to be independent and self-sufficient and the kind of future that I'd always assumed I'd have (i.e. being a wife and mother). I could seriously go on and on about all of the things that I lost, but at the same time there were things that I gained, too. Priceless things. Things that as a whole are far greater than the things I lost.

One of those priceless treasures I've gained is perspective. Perspective makes all the difference when going through something difficult! When I've distanced myself from my troubles, that's when I've found it easier to look at the bright side and learn lessons that have made me a better person. If/when you're confronted with an obstacle, I hope you'll be able to embrace it and find contentment as you wade through the trees.