panoramic view

I'm a detail person. Proofreading. Noticing the subtle differences in people and things. Picking up on the slightest changes. Remembering the most bizarre random facts about people, places, things, or experiences. Paying attention to each little item that I need for a trip, a training session, a meeting, a birthday party, etc... These are all good things about being a detail person.
The bad thing is that sometimes I can get so caught up in the details that I forget the big picture. "Can't see the forest for the trees" could describe me pretty well. A run goes poorly and I forget that it's just part of a bigger training season (or weekend). A conversation at work doesn't end the way that I hoped, and I need to remember that there will probably be other conversations and/or that not everything can will go my way all the time. I goof up in a relationship, and I struggle to remind myself that "I'm sorry" and "I forgive you" are possibilities and that no one can act "just right" all of the time.
Thankfully I am surrounded by very wise friends who remind me that sometimes the panoramic view is the one that I need to focus on rather than using my telescopic lens all the time. Whether it's in relationships, training, work, or just life in general, I think it's pretty good advice to heed.
We can make ourselves crazy if we become too focused on any one thing or detail. We can become too critical of ourselves or another person or the way a certain sentence is written or, or...well, you get the picture. (No pun intended.) Or we can get bogged down in one or two things that aren't going so well or any number of things that we don't like about ourselves and forget that overall, life is pretty darn good and that as a whole person, we're probably not all that bad.
Or maybe it's all just me and no one else out there ever replaces the panoramic lens with a telescopic lens, but I don't think so. I suspect that we're all prone to be hard on ourselves, to pick our own faults apart, to see the bad rather than the good when it comes to ourselves - and maybe with others or with situations as well. I certainly don't have the all of the answers to avoid this; and, frankly, I don't think we want to avoid the telescopic lens altogether. But I do think that the panoramic lens has its place, too. And that maybe just when we're thinking that life stinks or we stink, we need to look at life and ourselves through that wide-lens so that we can let in the good and the bad and make a pretty balanced and wonderful picture.