You would think that at this point in my life, much less on this research journey, that I would no longer be baffled with the unique approaches that the Lord takes to ensure that a message He is sending actually penetrates my brain. After sharing personal bizarre experiences in the posts Respectfully Mystified, Lasting Lyrics, and Strange Gifts, along with other odd occurrences that have yet to be jotted down, I fathom most people would develop some type of immunity to the somewhat unusual methods that our Creator sometimes employs to communicate. Yet, for some reason, each time a concept appears repeatedly and in unexpected places, I find myself bewildered once again.

Since one of the characteristics needed on the journey to a flourishing life is developing a Habit of Resilience, I’m not taken aback when grit and persistence are mentioned in readings like No Hero and The Obstacle is the Way. However, when the use of a phrase like Three-Foot World is spoken during one of my favorite television series and then repeated when browsing a book about faith, my mind starts spinning again like a colorful yard whirligig in the wind. Rewind—did I really hear Jace just say Three-Foot World? Reread—did Barbara just use the phrase ‘three square feet’? Why, yes, Julie! Copy that!

Perhaps the phrase Three-Foot World is a common one used by millions of people every day, but I can’t recall ever hearing it before now, so skip ahead if you are informed, or read on if you’re curious. With a little research, I uncovered applications to fitness, life, impact, and of course, resilience. If I understand correctly, the idea originates from Mark Owen’s book No Hero, where he shares the advice he received from “the human billy goat” of a climbing instructor while dangling off a sheer cliff face. “With one hand on the rock face, the instructor took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. It was obvious I was struggling. ‘Hey, man,’ he said in a lazy, raspy voice. ‘Just stay in your three-foot world.’ I was a couple of hundred feet up the rock face and I could barely think, let alone decipher his cryptic advice.” Owen continues to share the story of how this phrase became a mantra in his life.

“I’ll never forget those words: ‘Stay in your three-foot world.’ It was the only way I got off the rock face. I finished the climbing trip that week with a new perspective…It is liberating once you let go of the things that you can’t control. It seems to work for just about any situation. The three-foot world helped me get through everything from climbing to skydiving to night dives where the only way you can keep your bearings is to focus on the glowing compass on your wrist.” Owen offers several life applications for this mantra which had me reflecting on ways this mindset might come in handy in my own life as well those of my Emerging Adult students. Every day, we will encounter obstacles where there exists only a small portion that is, in reality, subject to our control, so how does God desire that we respond to our Three-Foot World?

An attempt to answer that inquiry fully would probably require an entire year’s worth of blog posts, but I offer here a perspective: He’s asking us to Watch the Worm, to pay careful attention to the Three-Foot World directly around us and to focus on His unique God-designed purpose for our lives. “It is not necessary to take on the whole world at first. Just take the three square feet of earth on which you are sitting, paying close attention to everything that lives within that small estate,” offers Barbara Taylor in An Altar to the World. Taylor encourages us to practice reverence to the world and people around us while Owen inspires us to practice focus. Perhaps these perspectives are two sides of the same Habit of a Flourishing Life coin!

When we Take It Slow to focus on the Three-Foot World around us, we notice not only the worm inching its way across to the grass, we also see “the human being instead of the obstacle” that might be in front of us. “Most of us move so quickly that our surroundings become no more than the blurred scenery we fly past on our way to somewhere else. We pay attention to the speedometer, the wristwatch, the cell phone, the list of things to do, all of which feed our illusion that life is manageable…these devices sustain the illusion that we might yet be gods—if only we could find some way to do more faster. Reverence requires a certain pace. It requires a willingness to take detours, even side trips, which are not part of the original plan,” shares Taylor.

So, what happens to our ability to flourish when we shift our focus down to a Three-Foot World in order to overcome a challenge or pay careful attention to a person near us? Please consider sharing any transformation stories you know of in the comments below.

References:

Holiday, R. (2014). The obstacle is the way: The timeless art of turning trials into triumph. Portfolio. 2021)

Owen, M. (2014). No hero: The evolution of a Navy SEAL. [Kindle version]. Penguin Publishing Group.

Taylor, B.B. (2009). An altar to the world: A geography of faith. [Kindle version]. Harper Collins.