This summer, our family took a trip out West to Montana, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons. Every day we were surrounded by towering peaks, crisp mountain air, wildlife that just wandered past like we weren’t there, and streams so clear you could count the rocks on the bottom.
One afternoon, while standing near a creek with mountains in the background, I struck up a conversation with a man who had lived there his whole life. I asked him what it was like to wake up to this kind of beauty every day for almost 50 years.
He kind of smiled and said, “You’re from Florida, right?” I nodded. And then he said, “You should be asking yourself the same question.”
To him, Florida was what Montana was to me - a landscape completely different from what he grew up with. He talked about our oceans, springs, year-round weather, and being a short drive from both big cities and beautiful country. And suddenly, it hit me: he saw Florida the way I saw Montana.
And I… had completely stopped seeing it.
There’s a quote we’ve all heard a hundred times:
“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
But maybe the problem isn’t the grass; or the fence. Maybe it’s the eyes we’re using to look.
Sometimes we’re so used to our surroundings that we forget how special they are. We drive past beauty, walk by blessings, and live in the middle of what someone else would call paradise. And because we’re used to it, we stop noticing it.
That conversation reminded me how easy it is to become numb to what we have. To see the same thing so many times that we forget how incredible it really is. It’s true with places, but it’s also true with people, with jobs, with family, and with faith.
One author said it like this:
“Paying attention in the day-to-day can wake us up to the extraordinary in the ordinary.” — Ruth Haley Barton
Sometimes all it takes is trading eyes with a stranger; hearing how someone else sees your world to wake you up to how beautiful it actually is.