spotting weeds

To be “lost in the weeds” is to be so caught up in minor detail as to completely miss the point.

Imagine two people getting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum.

One person spends this opportunity scanning the painting while admiring da Vinci’s creation; the other person spends their opportunity leaning slightly forward with their eyebrows curled and their eyes fixated on a piece of lint sitting on the edge of the canvas.

Both are facing the painting for the first and last time, yet only one will walk away actually having seen it.

To hold a magnifying glass up to any issue in life that will not matter in the grand scheme is to effectively be the person fixated on the piece of lint — to see something but, tragically, to not ever see the thing.

There is no shortage of weeds begging for your attention — little problems that feel big here, minor grievances that seem major there.

To suspend the illusion that a weed is somehow more important than it actually is, you need only ask yourself: “how much is this thing that I’m giving so much of my limited attention to really going to matter in the long run?”

Then and only then does the bigger picture begin to reveal itself:

Right now you are an active participant in this miraculous thing called life with a bunch of other people for a remarkably thin sliver of time.

Every day is an opportunity to try, break, and make things — to become something.

These days eventually run out, which means the days you do get — like this one — are worth their weight in gold.

The perspective you choose to maintain & the actions you choose to take will determine whether this day — and every day after it — is something tragically wasted over meaningless stuff or something beautiful and meaningful.