Lesson from a Morning Frost
Pause… and really take a look
The Backstory
Mornings can be one of two things… 1) Rough and slow or 2) Refreshing and opportunistic. Either way, it’s a new day that survived another night of darkness.
It was getting colder and colder outside, as autumn slowly froze into winter. I was up early one morning (for some weird reason I don’t remember), and I was going in and out of the house from the front doors to the driveway, as the sun was coming up over the horizon. I was without a coat and in a hurry not paying attention to anything else that wasn’t part of my current mission.
I made the run several times, and on the last trip, I realized something that was presenting itself right in front of me. I stopped… forgetting that I was getting cold… and wondered — what does this sea of white dust look like up close? Is it as “cool” and neat as I think it is?
The Object
The sun shone bright and made the front lawn glimmer like a swimming pool of disco balls… the morning’s frost had come.
It was only a matter of time before the shadows would give way to the warmth of the sun, and the frost would melt away.
My own eyes couldn’t see close enough to take a deeper look into the effects of the frost, so I pulled out my phone and knelt down.
With the camera on my Galaxy Note 5, I positioned the lens into the grass and use the phone like a magnifying glass… the big visual display making it easy to see up close. It was astonishing to see the tiny shards of ice creating fierce-looking chain saws out of each blade of grass.
I had never realized that frost on grass could be so interesting to look at and how majestic it is when looked at so closely. Still. Silent. Frozen… yet easily crushed and destroyed — the yard is just asking to be stepped in.
How frost forms?
Of course, I had to go hunting for more information about how little shards of ice can be formed on every visible blade of grass and presented in such a beautiful way. The National Geographic Education site provides a succinct explanation about frost and its different types… in a nutshell, it is the solidification of water vapor, or “it’s a layer of ice that forms on surfaces that are at or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.”
That’s neat and all, but what can we learn from a morning frost?
The Lesson
Every blade of grass is affected by the frost… nothing out in the open escaped its wrath. The key here is anything “out in the open” — anything “not defended.” So, if you woke up today rough and slow and not opportunistic, it’s probably because you didn’t prepare well enough the day before.
Much like the cold night turning into the warm day, the morning frost can teach us lessons about life and business.
The take-aways:
- Pause and look at things up close once in a while.
- Don’t underestimate what you cannot see.
- What took a long time to make can be destroyed in seconds.
- Preparation keeps one from freezing.
The sun has so much power and ability to sustain life… after a long night of freezing the air, just a little bit of heat destroys the frost. It’s so brittle; it looks so dangerous up close. What is causing you to freeze? What is stopping you from achieving what you want? What is your source for warmth?
Written by Shaun Holloway.
