Missing the big picture?

Once when I was quite young I went on a class trip to the sea as part of a lesson on marine life. We were pleasantly walking along the shore, ostensibly looking for sea shells or other signs of life, but most of my classmates were quickly bored and started kicking up sand or chasing each other. Used to doing my own thing, I kept at the sea shell collecting and had quite a handful of smaller shells. I was concentrating so hard I started to fall behind. My teachers urged me on -- "There will be more shells up ahead." Sure, I thought, but there are also a lot of good shells here that everyone is overlooking. It turned out, though, that the teachers had previously purchased some large shells from a shop and had scattered them in one particular area for the students to collect. They were easy to see and gather, even for the least observant or laziest child. By the time I got to that area, of course all the purchased shells had been taken.

A few years later I visited Brussels with a friend. I hadn't bothered doing research on the city ahead of time, figuring we would just join a bus tour or something line that. Group tours seemed more trouble than they were worth, though, so my friend and I grabbed a simple map and set out to see the sites. After hours of walking in a big circle and growing a little disappointed, we went to the last site on our map -- the market square. It was breathtakingly, awe-inspiringly beautiful. I had been doing my best to appreciate every bit of Brussels in the little churches and government buildings that we had visited, but it was so easy to fall in love with the charming city once we were in the town square, waffle in hand.

I like who I am. I like that I am methodical, relentless, efficient, able to capitalize on any situation, etc. I wasn't upset with myself at either the beach or Brussels because I'd done the best that I could with the information I had available. Still I often think about those experiences and wonder what other things I may be missing out on in life. Specific to my low-grade sociopathy, love? Human understanding? Emotional intimacy? Do I experience those things in their fullness? And if I in anyway chose this life, have I chosen the better part?