I listened to a talk by an incredibly talented National Geographic photographer, Dewitt Jones. The topic was “Finding the Right Answer“. It’s fascinating because he told a story about setting out with a specific plan for what he was looking to capture on one specific day; the region’s architecture, the weather, the people, and the subject focus or activity. He captured exactly what he set out to capture and that would have been enough. Job well done. Paycheck on the way.
But then stepped back to see it from a different perspective.
He grabbed a different lens and zoomed in on some of the fine details. Gorgeous.
Another right answer.
Then as he was leaving the region by helicopter, he noticed the shapes and patterns that could only be seen from the perspective of looking back, down on it.
Another right answer.
He concludes that the he had the same parameters of the problem, now seen from 3 totally different points of view. He could have packed up and left after the first image was seemingly perfect. But he kept looking for another right answer. He was looking to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. The extraordinary surfaced when he was able to tell the whole of the story, from a different perspective. It didn’t come by capturing a single flawless photograph.
“Perfection means wholeness, completeness, not flawlessness.”~ Dewitt Jones
What if you could take this perspective into your life?
What if, instead of working so hard to find THE right answer, you began to see the pieces of your life come together in a way that is making you whole? Instead of striving for what looks so perfect in someone else’s life, what if you began to realize that what feels flawed and imperfect, could actually be another right answer, you didn’t know to look for?
What if the struggle you’re going through right now is actually part of the right answer?
What if it’s making you stronger, wiser, more empathetic, more generous? What if you chose to step back and see it from a different perspective? A perspective that isn’t flawless, but is instead, whole.
In that view from the helicopter on the way out, you just might see perfection.
to more love,
Crystal
