Something fun I get to do with my wife Samantha is go to the west coast of Florida and just chill out. We like the area of Bald Point and Alligator Point near the town of Panacea. We keep a small fishing boat at the marina in Panacea so we can have a down-and-back trip to fish for a day. Samantha loves salt water and fishing; she recently caught two nice groupers just a hair under legal limit. We then went to the fish market to buy a grouper and paid for a fish identical in size to the two she had thrown back. What gives? Commercial fisherman do not have the same size restrictions as recreational anglers―shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Our favorite activity is taking long walks on the beach. Alligator Point has beautiful white sand, but the water color is much darker than other areas; unlike the clear water of Panama City and Destin, the Big Bend area of Florida gets an influx of river water stained with tannins, and so often resembles Willy Wonka’s chocolate river. From most of the gulfside rentals we frequent, you can walk for miles with very few crowds to impede your way. It’s therapeutic―not just the walking, but also the unique properties of the salt air, and it gives you a lot of time to think.
On a recent walk, it was pretty early in the morning, and there had been a storm the night before. It was near low tide, so there was plenty of exposed flotsam and jetsam washed up on the beach. Samantha is diligent about taking along a trash bag and cleaning up the plastic waste that is always inevitably strewn about. We both look for sea glass: essentially any broken glass item that for months or years has tumbled in the sand to form a smooth-edged, slightly opaque piece of glass―finding a cobalt blue or purple piece is a eureka moment. We walked about two miles and only saw one other person. There were no footsteps to indicate anyone had been along this route before us, and we found equal amounts of trash and treasures.
What struck me was, on the return trip, I found more treasures than I would have expected. I found a piece of purple glass, and yet I realized, as I looked around, I had searched that same area when I had walked past the first time. How could I have missed this piece? Several more times I found a treasure I had missed on the way out. Then it hit me―the return trip is not an identical route; it is a different perspective of the path, and thus, new sights are revealed. The angle of something in the sand looks different from one side than the other; the sun, being more in your face versus at your back, illuminates the ground differently. Even variations such as a dolphin surfacing nearby or a crab racing ahead to the safety of its den could divert your gaze just enough for you to miss something now clearly seen on the return-trip perspective.
Years ago, I took some golf lessons from a former LPGA tour player down in St. Augustine. I always felt I was a pretty decent putter, so she took me out on the course and placed a ball on the green and asked me to estimate how the putt would break to the hole. I looked it over and decided it would be about a 12” swing to the right. She told me to putt the ball 12” to the left; the ball not only didn’t go right but drifted further left. She then brought me to the other side of the hole and said, “now look at the putt.” From that side, you could clearly see the putt would go left. She reminded me there is a reason professional golfers look at putts from all angles―they need to get the full perspective.
What decisions are you making today without the benefit of full perspective? If you are working on an emergency, then quick decisive action is warranted, but most decisions allow for a full examination of the issues from all sides. Maybe there is information you lack that would fully illuminate a vexing problem. Seek out ways to increase your perspective, and after fully examining the issue from all sides, take the time to walk both forward and backward over the facts before you make an informed decision. This will pay great dividends in the long run.
I also highly recommend long walks on the beach: they’re a great way to think, stretch your legs, and develop your perspective.