The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

May 29Proportions Widened

But all great expression, which, on a superficial survey, seems so easy as well as so simple, furnishes, after a while, to the faithful observer, its own standard by which to appreciate it. Daily these proportions widened and towered more and more upon my sight, and I got, at last, a proper foreground for these sublime distances.

Margaret Fuller—At Home and Abroad; or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe (1856)

Have you ever stood at the summit of a mountain observing the expansive world below?

The chief benefit of making the climb and seeing the view is that we are forever changed by what we've seen and perhaps now better prepared to act profitably when we are down among the trees and day-to-day tasks.

That's another way of saying we need global perspective in order to grasp the proper priorities to fill our days.

Or as René Demaul describes it in his classic, Mount Analogue:

What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up.

Back up and study why you are doing what you are doing today, and affirm that either it is sufficiently big enough or it's not. Act accordingly.

Challenge Question

1. What's one act you can take to help widen your perspective?