Being in Germany Vol. 1: The Bigger Picture

Dec. 3, 2012
11:39p.m.

I took a cool shower tonight. Not because I wanted to... In Germany, the hot water is turned off after a certain hour. It's one of the many ways this country conserves its natural resources to ensure that their quality of life is never undermined with UNDERnecessary human comfort.

When I turned on the water, I waited for a while to see if it would by some chance heat up so that I could take a comfortable shower, especially after performing earlier tonight in a heatless venue (a beautiful mosque over 300 years old), coming back to the hotel and working out before getting some rest to do it all over again tomorrow. My wait was in vain. As I went to turn the water off, I paused and thought to myself, is it ABSOLUTELY necessary for you to have a HOT shower tonight?? What reason do you have to not get in this shower and wash yourself in this very tolerable temperature water?? Upon hearing these thoughts, I accepted the challenge I posed to myself and got in the shower to bathe. Before I knew it, my body adjusted to the temperature of the water and there was nothing to it.

I'm learning a lot about myself on this tour. I mean, those of you that know me well know that I consistently position myself in the mirror for the purpose of inflection, self- assessment, and ultimately growth in the direction of becoming my best self. Some old lessons are resurfacing and accompanying them are some familiar and unfortunate issues of my yesterday. Nothing to compromise the integrity of the tour but enough to force me to spend some quiet time to refocus my intentions, my energy and my choices.

As I sit in my quiet time, I'm realizing how often we tend to make monstrous issues out of minute things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. For example, a hot shower was by NO means mandatory for me tonight. Before recognizing this, I could have EASILY allowed myself to get frustrated with something that I have ZERO control over which would have solved absolutely nothing. So instead, I convinced myself that it would not hurt me to get in the cool shower and wash because the truth is, in many parts of our world, hot water is very much of a luxury and in some cases, water alone is a rarity. Hence, in the grand scheme of things, the more important ideal was that I bathe for the purposes of my health and hygiene, with the less important ideal being how comfortable I am while doing it.

I feel challenged. As a natural perfectionist and administrative delegate, the magnified success of any human experience lies in the small details that should in some way, contribute to the affect of the bigger picture. However, there is a point where one can focus so much on the details that the message of the big picture is no longer clear and majorly distorted. Which is more important: the bride and groom ceremonially giving their lives to one another in the presence of God, their families and their friends, or that the flowers on the tables at the reception have not bloomed in time to welcome the guests?? Is it more important that nobody showed up to your birthday celebration or that you have lived to see another year?? Is what your children eat for nourishment more important than the fact that they eat??

Friends, let's try not to get so caught up in the details of any given situation that we lose sight of the big picture which generally holds the point of it all. When we keep in mind the bigger picture, we are living a life full of purpose and we allow that purpose to be what drives us to our destination. I am by no means saying to forsake the attention to detail, but I am encouraging us to not stress the details so much that we lose sight of the purpose for doing that which we choose to do.