The Big Picture

If you’ve ever visited The Vatican, you more than likely made your way to the Sistine Chapel and stood under Michelangelo’s world-renowned ceiling.

If you’ve ever been in Wellington during the Winter Equestrian Festival on a Saturday night, you’ve probably sat ringside and watched the top athletes of this sport gallop their way around the pink footing, hurling themselves over obstacles as tall as men.

From under that ceiling or under those stadium lights, you get to witness the big picture.

It’s beautiful, grand, and you marvel at the talent.

These things draw me in. I want to be a part of a lineage of human beings that were so utterly consumed by that fire for life, that they stoked it and let it provoke them to not only see the big picture, but create their own. To keep leaning in, to draw closer to its warmth.

When you lean in closer to a painting, the big picture no longer fits entirely in your gaze. You become focused on the brush strokes, the attention to detail in the blend of colors to create depth with shading and highlighting. All you can recognize is line and hue.

A horde of intricacies.

A cluster of imperfections.

The same could be said of our world of Grand Prix athletes and their 1200lb mounts of muscle and scope. When you lean in and let the industry’s best show you the ropes, the veil of announcers and jumbotrons is pulled back and your view of the poetry in motion hones in on an endless work schedule, sheer dedication, fountain of expenses, the demanding travel, epic knowledge, and strenuous training.

Here, is what I know.

The masterpiece is praiseworthy. I love the big picture. I’ve traveled to different continents to witness it. I use the big picture to adjust my sights, but my admiration has a closer aim. Its attention is in the details. The nitty gritty magnified dive into perseverance to build or even come in proximity of what ambition’s fire has set.

We all want the masterpiece, but do yourself one better.

Build it boldly, completely unique, and entirely filled with kindness.

Build yours with a life so overflowing with grit and grace that people who stand before it want to join ranks in that legacy of human spark.