Every year my amazingly wonderful soon-to-be family and I spend a week away at the same small, perfect lake they have been going to for 40 years. No TV, no Internet. Nothing but the lake, the wood-paneled rooms, and each other.

Going completely “unplugged” can be a little difficult for me. I usually disconnect in stages… The first stage is complete panic that I cannot obsessively check work email. Next, acceptance that most things can wait a week or so in the grand scheme of things…especially since we only get to do this once a year.

image credit: sxc.hu

Once the lovely calm of being digitally helpless settles in, my focus completely changes. I become aware for a moment that the sandy beach I’m standing on is made up of thousands of singular grains of sand and try to focus on just one. I think about how if you add a little water, these individual grains of sand can take the form of something else like a bucket or a complete sand castle. Add too much and it turns to mush…then eventually dries into nothing but individual grains of sand, just as they started. How amazing that such a little piece of barely anything can do all that.

Look closely at a handful of it, and you just have several itty-bitty pieces of rock or glass. Step back, and you would never notice the beach was anything but an immovable hilly mass.

I try to take these little lessons of perspective back home with me to unpack when I get stressed and need a reality check. Sometimes seemingly immovable problems really are just a beach. Once you become aware of the pieces and possibilities, problems become easier to solve. Sometimes you realize they are not problems at all, but rather opportunities to make something new, something amazing if you add a little creativity and maybe just a dash of bravery.

Perspective is a really powerful thing.