Zoom

We recently bought a new digital camera. Our old one was beginning to throw large fits, turning itself on and off at will, and refusing to comply with simple requests such as "upload to computer" and "focus." I briefly mourned the loss of the old camera, remembering all the memories it had captured. Then, with a shout of glee, began playing with my new toy, which I bought on sale at Target. My favorite part of the new camera is the zoom function. With the press of a button, it can hone in on details and capture perspectives that the naked eye cannot.

I have taken score of photos of leaves, raindrops, and my children's faces, just to test the limits of the most hallowed zoom. The excitement about the zoom function was starting to wear off until I started writing out my work outs for the week.

At the beginning of each week, I consult the official triathlon training guide and painstakingly map out a schedule of the daily torture that awaits me. I have officially left the "base" phase of training and entered the psychotic, seemingly impossible "build" phase. As I was scribbling furiously, translating training codes and lactate interval sets into real language, I began uttering words like. "Crap," "Seriously?" and "What. Have. I. Done."

In spite of my outbursts, I knew that there was no turning back. I've blogged about it and I've paid the entry fee for the race. Hundreds of people would know if I quit, and there is a no refund policy. I felt a wee bit trapped, totally unsure of how I was going to make it through the volume and intensity of the training.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my new, beautiful, holy digital camera. I suddenly realized I was looking at the week in it's entirety instead of focusing on one day at a time. I changed my perspective and honed in on the first running workout. Could I do it? Absolutely. I looked at the first swim workout. Yep, doable.

In all my workouts this week, I've applied the zoom perspective. Each day is about it's own training. Each interval set stands alone. Each sprint is it's own thing. I don't think about the 2500 yards I have to swim, I think about the 25 in front of me. I swim it down that way, one lap at a time. At the end of the week, my internal camera will pan back out and analyze the sum total of all the days.

I'm applying the zoom perspective to other areas of my life as well. A moment with my kids, a specific project, the dinner that needs to be made. In my mind's eye, I view the task through the lens of a camera and zoom in. My perspective changes, focus comes, and I'm fully alive in the moment. A panoramic view of all that needs to be accomplished is overwhelming and often, paralyzing. I know many people struggling through divorce, unemployment, illness. The enormity of the situation is too weighty, too suffocating to manage.

But, we can all live one moment at a time.

Jesus himself tells us in Matthew 6,

"So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."