There was a fly on that leaf. (For more wordless posts today, visit Wordless Wednesday.)

I’m going to get wordy on this picture post. For one, I was saving this photo for this thought and, for another, it irks Michelle. But, stick around. I think you’ll find this post motivational. Hopefully. One never knows how these things will turn out. Let’s get started…

The other day, I was out taking photos of insects. Generally, I see something interesting and go and grab the camera. And, while out with the camera, I find more interesting things. Often, I take multiple shots of those interesting things, because I’ve learned that the camera’s viewscreen isn’t always an accurate representation of what I actually photographed. It’s pretty good, but there are times when a bad image looks good on the tiny little screen and vice versa. Remember that. It’ll be important here in a bit.

Anyway, there was a fly. It was on the leaf you see above. I know what you’re thinking. Yes, of course, you’re thinking, Wow! A fly! That would have been totally awesome! I know.

Now, the thing you have to understand is that I have to manually focus the camera to get these close shots of insects. That means, the insect must patiently wait. The fly patiently waited, up until I pressed the button.

It had flown off at just the right moment. I looked at the viewscreen and confirmed the fly was not there. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

I was tempted to delete the shot right there, but decided not to do so. Maybe I could use the leaf image for something. I took a few more photos and I ran out of space on the camera. Had I opted to take another photo, you can guess which image would have been deleted from the memory card.

So, later, I download the images from the camera to the computer. I look at every photo to see how it turned out. And, I came across the where-a-fly-once-was photo. Here it is:

You see that on the far right? I didn’t see it on the camera’s viewscreen, but I noticed it right away on the computer screen.

Here it is enhanced and close-up:

I think that is an awesome shot! And, it was almost pure luck that I managed to get it. Otherwise, I would have had a fly sitting on a leaf which, despite my earlier hype, might have been a bit boring or I would have had no fly at all. This is certainly pretty cool to capture the fly in mid-flight like that. Just look at the wings! And the little shadow. Very cool.

Look at the legs. Like a superhero or something, leaping over tall buildings in a single bound.

Anyway, you see how close that image came to being deleted. If I had deleted it out in the field, I would never have known I had a great shot like that. Of course, one could argue that you can’t miss what you never knew you had, but that’s not the point.

The point is how many great things have happened in our lives that were just on the periphery and we missed them? We didn’t think anything of them. We thought we already lost them. We didn’t notice they were even there.

But they were there. Either we weren’t looking in the right spot, or we didn’t pay close enough attention, or we were just seeing the little picture instead of the big picture. In any case, it was right there and we missed it!

Are you pushing the delete button on the great opportunities in your life?

People talk about “secrets” and such. Believe in it, and it will come your way. But the real truth is that it was there all along, but we haven’t been seeing it.

Did you ever see “The Power of Myth” series when Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell? There was a segment where they were talking about Eden, and the various myths about where Eden, or its equivalent was, and Campbell’s response was, “Eden is, but men do not see it.”

That’s probably true! There are so many things that are right in our peripheral vision that we just never turn to look and see. Single and looking? Maybe you just need to turn your head. Looking for the next money-making opportunity? Maybe it’s been buzzing just by your head.

Whatever it is you’re currently looking to get in your life, make sure you’re not hitting the mental delete button too soon. The thing you want may already be there, but you just haven’t seen it.

As always,
Believe. Act. Achieve!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under Nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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