Weekly Photo Challenge: Down

The WordPress Post a Week photo challenge is:

“Down. We spend a lot of time looking ahead, looking from left to right before we cross the street, looking into the sky for Superman, but not a lot of time looking down. What do you see?”

We can miss a lot by never looking down as we hurry along our way, not to mention possibly tripping and falling on obstacles in our path. As a little girl, my Dad made that very point to me one day as we walked hand in hand across a parking lot. He looked down and saw a dollar bill flattened to the pavement by the footprints of those who had literally walked right over it as they went into or came out of the store. A dollar could buy a whole lot more back then, more penny candy than I could even count! My Dad is one to never let a teaching moment pass, and that day the lesson was not about money, but rather about looking down and paying attention to where you’re going.

As he picked up the dollar he said, “See, it pays to look where you’re going. How many people have walked right past, and even stepped right on this dollar bill, never noticing it in broad daylight?” It wasn’t a question he expected me to answer, but the lesson has stuck with me throughout my life. And as an adult, I realized that it really did “pay” for my Dad to look down that day.

I’ve found a few treasures by looking down; lots of coins, especially pennies, and one time a fake diamond from a necklace. By looking down I’ve avoided tripping over speed bumps or curbs, stepping in mud puddles or other organic matter (such as animal droppings), and contact with poison ivy.

Sometimes the reward for looking down is as simple as seeing the sky reflected in a puddle of water, or a pretty leaf that came to rest on a step, like the one in my picture.

Wise man that he is, my Dad taught me a valuable life lesson that day. One that is worth far more than the dollar he found on the ground by looking down.