What is your ultimate big picture?

We often read or hear comments like “you’ve got to see the bigger picture here”. What does this really mean? And if there’s a bigger picture about something, is this bigger picture just part of an even bigger picture?

Webster defines big picture as an entire perspective on a situation or issue. Do bigger issues have even bigger big pictures? How long could this go on?

Does the notion of an ultimate big picture even make sense to you? I googled the phrase and got more than 100,000 hits. Here’s an example:

The Causal Pathway is divided into five main components: Impact, Effects, Outputs, Activities and Inputs, and we will describe each one in turn… The ultimate “big picture” reason that we undertake many of our programs is to improve the social, economic and health status of the population with which we are working. In the language of the Causal Pathway, this ultimate purpose of the program is the desired Impact.

Is ultimate big picture the same as ultimate purpose?

What is the scope of your big picture, or ultimate big picture if you’ve got one? And what do you think about the term as such?