Can't See The Forest For The Trees

I've Noticed that there is a time and a place for everything, and sometimes the details - or the trees - need to be in focus.

In the past when I've heard the expression "can't see the forest for the trees", I've always thought, "That is not me. I don't want to live a life so consumed by the details that I can't enjoy the forest." Now I'm thinking a little differently ...

Don't get me wrong, I am a forest kind of girl. I am a visionary. I love the grand. When I close my eyes I see the forest, the big picture. It's not that I don't enjoy the journey, it's just that truth be told, whether immature or not, I can't wait to get to the destination. I can't wait for all the trees to come together to create the forest of my dreams. But the fact is all the trees must come together to create the forest. Every tree matters. Every tree needs to be seen.

The easy example for me here is The Noticed Network. Our goal is that everyone in the world will be Noticed, that is our forest. But how wonderful is it that in order for our forest to even exist... we must see, and hear, and Notice individual humans, metaphorically every tree. And just like trees every human is amazing and inherently worthy.

So I've Noticed that the expression "can't see the forest for the trees" needs to be tweaked a bit to work for me. I'm changing it just a little to say "can't see the forest without the trees".

We live in a very busy, very fast paced world. Even though Noticing is my passion, there are still people in my life who I have not yet had the privilege of Noticing. I was able to Notice one of them today. As you may have heard me say before, I believe in Divine timing, and I know today was the perfect time to Notice her. Taking the time to shift my focus from the big picture to Noticing this amazing woman made the forest bigger, and it made it grander.

We all live in our own forest, surrounded by our own trees. This metaphor can be used to explain so many different things, situations, and people in our lives. Sometimes the forest is full of happiness, what I like to call abundance of the grand, and other times it is full of hard times, and overwhelming situations. It is my belief that we can not see the forest without the trees. The trees are the details and we get to focus on the positive - we get to Notice the goodness! Taking the time to really see the goodness in the people in your life and then Noticing them for being their amazing selves is win-win because it feels so good to Notice and be Noticed.

Here's to the beautiful forest made possible by each beautiful tree.