Open your eyes, and wait and see the bigger picture, before it's too late. Because sometimes it's a choice you must make.

"It's a necessary ability to filter what we read and why should it be any different for how we think?" - Peter Mason

Breathe. Take a second and pause. Feel the gentle rush of air into your lungs. If you meditate often then perhaps you already know these motions. In this space, I'm asking if you've seen or realised that there's a bigger picture, one that is hard to visualise and one that hides in plain sight. One that is there covered by our lives. It can seem like it only appears after it's too late. Oh so easy to see in hindsight. Yet, the future stands quietly there, patiently waiting. This has been a feeling I've felt at the end of a year at school, thinking of things you wanted to do. The steps you tried to take and the growth you wanted for yourself.

Now, I understand that in this case, school isn't a huge life-defining deal, albeit very important, but it has helped me realise that there are bigger things than I see or know around me. The daily swirl of our routine life perhaps gives us a form of tunnel vision. The pressing matters in our life are the assignments due for our studies or work or that shampoo you need to buy or birthdays or that dentist appointment next Tuesday. The present day and version of ourselves is the us we know from looking in the mirror and hearing our reflection from the point of others. This is part of us that we can change and develop, seemingly more in our control. We like to dress up, look better, act better and improve upon our mistakes. We can make achievable goals from actions in the short term.

The bigger picture gets pushed to the back. But in this set of motions, we define our bigger picture. Our decisions and choices determine the person we are. Only after we step back, from a significant impact to that schedule, then a realisation hits us. That house you wanted to save up for, the career goal and personal goals for where you want to be. The goal helps to bring that thought you had when you were thinking optimistically and calmly in a time when your emotions are heightened. This realisation can make you rethink asking back to that petty argument, that low test grade or a fuss over getting those new shoes. When you put everything in scale, some losses or events aren't that bad when you change your perspective. Vice versa too, but take the good moments when they come.

"That's a reactive, passive feeling. I'm asking you to think about it a little more and be active."

I want us to feel that realisation, instead of after a notable change or shock - a job change, a health scare, anything of nature's endless possibilities. That's a reactive, passive feeling. I'm asking you to think about it a little more and be active. We all have dreams of achieving better versions of yourself. I hope this can make us be better people in the moment by thinking of the grander picture. Focus on something more long term and being more grateful for days to work towards that. There's a warmth in accepting the ups and downs to getting to your final goal, and it not giving a piercing feeling of dread, when you realise that you didn't think about it before. That was the previous you, the one before you thought about it and worked out where you wanted to go. You selected what you wanted to see, not just what was laid in front of your eyes. It's a necessary ability to filter what we read and why should it be any different for our eyes? Zoom out of the immediate frame of the moment and step back to see and paint the more magnificent watercolour.