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3 Reasons It’s Important to Look at the Big Picture

Guest articles > 3 Reasons It’s Important to Look at the Big Picture

by: Shannon Wills

My sister celebrated her 28th birthday a week ago, while we were on a holiday together with our spouses and children. She was cranky the entire morning – she snapped at us and shouted at the kids, so much so that we were wondering what had happened to make her react this way. Finally the truth was out – she was mad at our mother because she thought she had forgotten her birthday.

Mom hadn’t forgotten; rather, she had been trying her cell phone all morning and was unable to get through because of either a weak signal or network congestion. But my sister refused to believe her and sulked all morning; worse, she remembered all the things that mom had not done for her – she forgot her anniversary, she chose me over her on many occasions, and so on and so forth.

I tried to tell her to instead think of the big picture and forget the trivialities – how mom had been there for her when her oldest was born, how she took care of both of them as my sister went through postpartum depression and could not even feed her baby; how mom had put her life on hold for a few years to look after my sister’s children when she went back to school to earn a degree that she claimed could advance her professional career; and how mom had used her savings to provide for the children because my sister was going through a bad divorce at the time. She calmed down in a few minutes, and after an apology to mom, celebrated her birthday in style.

That’s the reason why we must look at the big picture, the things that really matter in life. When we focus on the trivialities and forget what is really important:

• We become petty: When we miss the forest for the trees, we become more selfish and narrow minded. We think only of ourselves and forget that there are other people who matter, people who love us and who put up with us because of their affection for us. We fail to understand that the world does not revolve around us and that our loved ones don’t need to pamper us all the time.
• We are bad tempered: We expect more from the people around us no matter how much they do for us, and this leaves us bad tempered and in a foul mood most of the time. Our cheerless disposition has people wanting to stay away from us and slowly we end up losing our friends and finding that our family members are distancing themselves from us.
• We are never optimistic: There is nothing that seems hopeful when we fail to look at the big picture, so the glass is always half empty. We stress ourselves out unnecessarily and ruin our health in the process. And when there is a problem, we find that we react to it rather than take the bull by the horns and try to tackle it proactively.

Looking at the big picture helps you maintain perspective and lead a happy and contented life, at peace with yourself and those around you.

This guest post is contributed by Shannon Wills, she writes on the topic of Online Engineering Degrees. She welcomes your comments at her email id: shannonwills23@gmail.com.

Contributor: Shannon Wills

Published here on: 10-Jan-10

Classification: Development

Website: http://toponlineengineeringdegree.com/

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