HealthCommentary

Exploring Human Potential

DAILY CHOICE: Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Big Picture vs. Little Picture

book_bookofchoices_thumbREFLECTION:

Is it stones that make the mountain or is the mountain made of stones? To which should our attention first be drawn? There are those who say the answer is to see it all, from different points of view, before choosing to edit or ignore. After all, you have to get by the big to focus on the little. The focus is necessary, they say, to correct, or fix, or adjust the picture. The problem is that too rapid concentration on the small, and its correction, may correct for you but further distance your neighbor from a solution. That is the cost of the big picture missed. For what is big and what is small? How often does one seek the big prize, only to find, once won, that it is not so big after all? Often! And how often does one ignore the little pleasure or moment of truth only to find years later it was not so small after all? Often! In the ever present battle between the children and the grass, should play give way to a perfect carpet or the reverse? And do we not all end up in ground in the end, so why not kick up some dirt before we permanently dissolve? There are games and there are championships. There is matter that often doesn’t matter and spirit that wants to slip right through the fingers so busy reaching out for something else. It is the little that makes the big. But it is the big that creates the environment for tomorrow’s little. So it contradicts. Very well. Then it is all of ours to sort out.Men trip not on mountains, they stumble on stones.
Old saying

MUSES:

See everything: overlook a great deal: correct a little.
Pope John XXIII

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger.
Saint Basil

Some of us miss out on life’s big prizes. The Pulitzer. The Nobel. Oscars. Tonys. Emmys. But we’re all eligible for life’s small pleasures. A pat on the back. A kiss behind the ear. A four-pound bass. A full moon. An empty parking space. A crackling fire. A great meal. A glorious sunset. Hot soup. Cold beer. Don’t fret about copping life’s grand rewards. Enjoy its tiny delights. There are plenty for all of us.
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My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, “You’re tearing up the grass.” “We’re not raising grass,” Dad would reply. “We’re raising boys.”
Harmon Killebrew

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.
Anonymous epitaph for Alexander the Great

Set short term goals and you’ll win games. Set long term goals and you’ll win championships!
Anon.

We have grasped the mystery of the atom, and rejected the sermon on the mount.
Omar Bradley

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The proper time to influence the character of a child is about 100 years before he is born.
William R. Inge

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain Multitudes.

Walt Whitman

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