“Never worry about numbers.  Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.”

— Mother Teresa

As our family drove on an epic 4,000 mile family vacation this past week, we passed through a vast array of impressive natural wonders – The Rocky and Cascade Mountains, The Great Plains, The Corn Belt, The Columbia, Snake, and Missouri rivers, The Great Salt Lake, etc. We even passed many man-made and eclectic icons – Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drug, The Corn Palace, The World’s Largest Ball of Twine, etc.

But no matter how many memorable sites we passed, we drove by far more of those little white dashes in the middle of the road. Those omnipresent dashes separating the lanes of traffic. Those dashes keeping us safe on the highways. Those dashes that … are longer than we think.

According to this article out of Ohio State University, those little white highway dashes are actually 10 feet long. Most of the research participants guessed 2 feet. That’s quite an impressively inaccurate perception of something that is so ubiquitous in our world.

Maybe there are other things in life that we zoom by which would become larger and more important to us if we just slowed down to look closely.

Maybe … people.

The past few weeks of time … A very long, bittersweet trip with our family to visit our extended family in the Midwest. We slowed down to spend time with the people who have made a difference in our lives.