You Are Too Close To See The Truth

Our perspective may be limited. Our perspective has been created over years of experiences, rationalizations, feedback and response. It truly is beautiful how we see the world from our own lens, because it means we offer something unique to ourselves. But, we must be honest and recognize that it presents limitations. While I often talk about the positive side of perspective, I am going to talk about the negative side:

You are too close to see the truth.

We all have our default perspective and way of processing the environment around us. Whether we are approaching a challenge, we rely on our default scripts that have done us good in the past. But, as we gain more experience and navigate deeper into the issue something odd happens. We know too much to make a truly informed decision.

The decisions we make are just trade-offs. What are the consequences for the reward? When we know too much, we are hyper-focused on the small details, that mean a lot to us because they are now in our awareness, often prioritizing those micro things over the more important macro consequences.

This is why hearing others’ opinions is so important, both personally and professionally. It is through the fresh eyes of others where we can see the bigger picture that we usually cannot. I have had some really good conversations with people who have known more of the truth by knowing less, simply because they aren’t being distracted by the small details.