Standing Tall Alone

I was walking through the grocery store this morning, feeling a bit invisible. It was one of those days where the crowd feels like a rushing river, and I was just a stone at the bottom, letting everyone pass by. Then, I saw a young girl in the cereal aisle. She was wearing a bright yellow raincoat, even though it wasn’t raining, and she was standing perfectly still while her mother hurried past her. She wasn’t bothered by the rush or the noise. She just stood there, looking at the colorful boxes with such quiet, steady focus. It made me think about how hard it is to hold your ground when everything around you is moving at a different speed. We spend so much of our lives trying to blend in, to match the pace of the crowd, that we forget there is a certain kind of power in simply refusing to sway. Sometimes, the most courageous thing you can do is just be the one thing that stays put.

Laria Saunders captured this exact feeling of quiet defiance in her beautiful image titled Leading Edge. It reminds me that standing out isn’t about being loud, but about being steady. Does this image make you feel like standing still for a moment, too?