If we try hard enough (or smart enough) we can often look past difficulty.

Or around it.

The key is not to look directly at the difficulty so long that we become paralyzed and eventually give up. Many times we throw in the towel even before starting the search for other options.

You can take stock of your situation, look adversity in the face. It is probably a good idea to do so. That said, locking eyes with it for too long saps us of our energy for perseverance and creative thinking. Once you have your bearings, your time is likely better spent doing something besides focusing on the fact that something went wrong or what might go wrong next.

Easier said than done, I know.

It’s funny the way I came upon this theme. No big disaster. Not even the cold I got from my son (thank you preschool). No, my reminder came in the above photo I took last Friday at Pt. Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington.

The sun is what caught my eye walking beneath a high canopy of frosted limbs. Amazing how light broke into flaming gold around the tree. I snapped two shots and knew I liked neither. I had no more time to frame a third. I was trailing a friend and my toddler who were playing with sticks, which was the real purpose for our visit. Not enough stick play in my son’s life and I had determined that I should make up for that.

Over several days I looked back at the two sunshine shots and could not get past the inelegance of the picnic structure and the year-round park restrooms they included. I am sure there are ways to capture each of these buildings elegantly, but I had not done so.

It wasn’t until tonight that I took another look and decided I could crop out all the manmade humdrum of what was still a stunning mid-morning view. A basic lesson of photography that I’ve gone and stretched into life wisdom.

Is this cheating, to clip and cut away what you don’t want in the picture? I don’t think so. It’s my picture, my moment. Just like your life is yours to create. You don’t have to keep every bit that you don’t want, that isn’t doing you any good.

A perspective shift from editing a camera phone photo I snapped in the park? It is about moving past a problem toward a solution. Inconsequential though it may seem on its face, you never know. Little steps add up, especially when they’re heading in the direction you want to go.

Can we salvage every photo? By extension, is every bad life event “winnable”?

Maybe not.

Then again, staring directly into our doubt, fixating, giving ourselves over to its adopted power—this is no solution. This offers no glory. Whether there is a bright spot to hold your focus or not, reframing is better than wallowing.

Give it a good, honest examination. Go for it. But, then you move on and look past it. Or you turn to see in a completely new direction.

Doubts don’t have the power. You do.