Less than a month after her accident, Bethany was on her board again, learning how to surf with one arm. The next year saw her awarded the Best Comeback ESPY Award and Teen Choice Courage Award. In 2005 she took first place in the NSSA National Championships. And when asked if she would still have gone out on the day of the shark attack, Bethany replied "Yes, because I have been able to embrace more people with one arm than i ever could with two". The problem afforded an opportunity only visible through eyes filled with faith.
As comic Demetri Martin says "I just feel like there's a parallel world right in front of us that's revealed with a small shift in perspective... I don't own a poncho... But if somebody says to me, 'Do you have a poncho?', I don't say 'No', I say 'Not right now'. Because I do have a blanket and scissors. At any given moment I am four minutes from a poncho."
Hiding in your favourite blanket is a poncho waiting to be born, a dream hidden in the mundane. All it takes is a small shift in perspective (and a head-sized hole in the middle). But, just like your blanket, the average must be sacrificed in order to embrace the extraordinary. We either live in the box or out of it - there is no in between (and if there is, it's incredibly uncomfortable. Tried sitting on the edge of a box recently? Ouch).
You do not necessarily have to stop what you are doing. Just approach it from a different angle. See what it looks like on the other side. Things might not be as hopeless, dreary or boring as you expect on the other side of your mountain.
Start fishing on the other side of the same boat. You would be surprised what you can catch. Jesus told his disciples to do that, and suddenly a fruitless fishing trip turned into a success. Same boat. Same people. Same place. Different perspective.
It's not that we should not get out of town to gain perspective. But sometimes escapism does not give us the change that we seek. We think we need to get away, go somewhere different, seek God and seek a solution, when the problem is with our eyes not with what we are looking at. It often has to do with where we are looking, not what we are actually doing.
It may seem like we need to get away to see things differently. But the joy of living a satisfied life home and away (oh look, a terrible Autown soapie reference) is afforded to those who can get a different view from where they are already standing.
The art of perspective.