Do You See The Forest Or Trees?

Some books tell you to think happy thoughts. This one doesn't. Stand close enough to any tree and it fills your whole sky. That is what a hard week does to a person. That is what a bad diagnosis does, or a layoff, or a bill you cannot pay. It walks you right up to a single tree and holds your face against the bark, and you would swear there is nothing out there but this. There is. There always is. But you cannot see it from six inches away. Do You See the Forest or the Trees? is a short book about perspective, written for anyone standing too close to something. It uses the forest as a way of looking at a life. The stumps you keep counting. The trail you cannot see around. The moss that grows so slowly nobody ever watches it, and covers the whole stone anyway. This book will not tell you that everything happens for a reason. Bad things happen to good people for no reason at all, and no amount of positive thinking prevents them. Hope is not a substitute for help. It is what you carry while you get the help. What it will tell you is smaller and more useful. That the size of a thing depends on where you are standing. That you have never once been able to see around a corner and you are still here. That you belong to something enormous and generous and unfinished, and so do you. Twelve short chapters. Each one ends with a single line worth keeping. The back of the book collects all of them on one page, so you can find the one you need without reading the rest. Written in the voice of a friend on a bench in a state park, not a lecture from an expert. Step back. It is bigger than you think.