More Than One Way to Look at Things

I don’t know about you, but I have very little idle time to purely think. It doesn’t drive me to feelings of panic, but I do find some discomfort in it. Like everyone, I sneak deep thought in in-between everything else that is pressing and distracting and occupying my time. At times, I feel cut short. 

That is unless I am underwater, which I routinely am. Aside from recreational diving like when I am at work, I can only really let my mind do what it does best if I am performing a mundane task like cleaning. Don’t know about you, but it’s very rare anymore that I can do anything mindlessly. Where the outside world can't find me. The opportunity to clear the mind and think about nothing, or to ponder a problem. Whatever. 

That’s why I like the early part of my Tuesday mornings. Today. I scrub the inside of a large exhibit tank filled to the brim with pre-historic looking fish (If you watch River Monsters on Discovery Channel, those are the big fish I mean). Really cool, but virtually robotic work. It’s just me, a scrub brush, and some elbow grease for a whole hour. Sometimes I get to catch out a couple of turtles though that’s not the norm but I got to today.

Some mornings I wake up with something already on my mind. Other times, like today, I’ve barely had enough coffee to think straight before I am submerged.

Today was a halfsy. Stuff on my mind, and not fully awake enough to string together anything that made sense (Keep in mind I am in the tank around 6:45 a.m., which is about 40 minutes from the time my alarm goes off.). The water was particularly cold, and I felt a little discombobulated. 

I worked my way up, down and across the pitted exhibit wall covered with a moderate amount of algae due to the lack of strong sunlight at this time of year. My technique is to move along in one direction then cross back over the same area from the opposite side. That way I can see everything from a different angle, in a different light, and notice what I’ve missed because I always miss something.

Then the lightbulb went off (No, it really did.)

This way of looking at something as routine as my Tuesday morning cleaning project from several, or at least two, different angles has application outside of scrubbing an exhibit tank!

I truly comprehend there are two sides to every story. Differing perspectives. I notice the gray. But, being human, I am continually a work-in-progress.