2-48: Watch Your Step

But Not Too Closely

I was on a short twenty-minute walk on the beach when I had just turned around to head home. Not long into my route back, as I was leisurely placing one foot in front of the other, I realize I’ve just stepped on something seriously sharp. At first, I thought it surely was a small piece of glass. I almost fall over after lifting my foot up to keep it from pushing this sharp object in further. Upon looking down, I find that it was a bee’s stinger that I promptly pulled out. For some reason, I thought that walking into the salty water of the Gulf would ease the pain. To no one’s surprise, it did not, and the sharp pain continued for the next ten minutes.

The following fifty steps or so, I limped while I was assessing the pain and evaluating the distance back to my spot up the beach. Towards the end of those steps, I thought to myself, to hell with my bee-stung foot, let me just walk normally and enjoy the rest of what was otherwise, and will continue to be, a very pleasant walk on the beach.

I decided that instead of stressing to examine all of the brown-ish colored shells in front of me for their similarities to a bee, I would look up at the waves crashing, the sun in the sky, and the scenery along the shore. I very well could have continued to, mostly unnecessarily, limp up the beach while keeping my head down in search of beached bees, but I did not. I decided to focus on what was in front of me and the simultaneously relaxing and energetic nature of my surroundings.

I quickly considered how slim the chances were of stepping on a bee stinger while walking the beach and determined they were remarkably low. Even though I noticed more bees in my path than expected, the risk still felt small. With my head down searching for bees, I completely lost touch with how far I was from home.

Very often, we find that a small incident or issue can distort our view of everything around it. To me, that was the small unpleasant incident of stepping on a bee stinger while on a beach walk in consideration of the otherwise entirely pleasant time. The sharp pain from that one step was definitely felt, though I did not allow that to weigh down the rest of my steps.