Maybe I need to adjust the lens

I am no photographer. I enjoy taking pictures, absolutely. But I don't have the skills of knowing how to compose a shot or check the light levels. Sometimes I consider taking a class or reading a book but the notion usually passes, and I go back the simple pictures and selfies I normally take.

I recently went on a 4,000-mile roadtrip across the country. I started at Lake Erie, drove south to Kentucky, across the plains to Denver, and through the mountains and desert of Colorado, Utah and Nevada. It was a fantastic trip and much of the entertainment was simply enjoying the incredible landscapes of this immense country.

I took a lot of pictures. Digital photography is great because you can take a lot of terrible pictures and know immediately whether you need to try something else or just give up. I played around with different ideas and got to know my camera better just from trial and error. One thing I was struck by was how much my life felt like I was viewing it through a camera lens lately.

When I am in a very busy season or focused on one project, it is much like taking a close-up picture of an object like a flower or a fancy door handle or something like that. You spend a lot of time trying to get it framed just right and focused so the details stand out. But it can be very easy for me to stay in a "close-up" mode and miss what is happening around me.

It took an epic road trip across 10 states for me to "zoom out" a bit and get some perspective on life. There are so many people living lives that are so unlike mine in places that are so different from my everyday experience and I just plain forgot because I was so wrapped up in my own life. I needed to adjust the lens at which I was viewing life.

So the question is...do I need to do this more often? Focus and details are great and have their place, for sure, but I feel convicted to build some more time into my schedule to "zoom out." There is so much to see, and even though I realize how small a part of the picture I am, I still feel like I am more in focus because of it.