Glasses

 Glasses

I didn't start wearing glasses until I was in high school. I had such a phobia about eyes; that I struggled to wear contacts. And when I went to college I didn't like how I looked in them and would not wear them all the time. A funny story - in college, when I would come into the cafeteria after basketball practice, my wife tells me that she thought I was a tough guy because I would come in with a scowl. She learned later that I was just squinting to see! I can imagine her disappointment in thinking she had found this brooding, tough guy, to later discover that I was just too prideful to wear my glasses. However, after 28 years, I guess she was not all disappointed, or maybe just persistent - probably a little of both.

Lately, I have been paying a lot more attention to my glasses. My new glasses have been causing me troubles. I spend a large portion of my time meeting with people, which nowadays, requires me to wear my mask most all of the time. Initially, I had to take off my glasses when I was wearing my mask because they would fog up: what a time.  After trying some different products on the lenses, I tried my old glasses. Interestingly enough, for whatever reason, they do not fog up. 

As is sometimes the case, my need for glasses has just increased over the years. I started out with an astigmatism, a misshaping of the eye that causes the eye to not focus properly. Over time, or is it experiences, I have now developed some farsightedness and some nearsightedness. I can't believe it, but I have trifocals. With the progression of technology, my lenses are “progressive” so that as I tilt my head, I am able to adjust and see the world as intended through the use of different lenses. 

As I reflected on this thought, I recognized all the different ways that lenses are used in life to accomplish the goal of allowing us to see the world as it is. Lenses in a microscope are positioned in a way to allow us to see things so small that before we did not know existed. Telescope lenses are positioned in a way that allow us to see things so far away that we continue to discover there is more to discover today. Lenses allow us insights into worlds that have always been within our view. By that I mean we have looked at them but we have not seen them. Lenses give us the ability not just look at things, but to see them. There is a difference.

As I mentioned before, I have some problems that prevent me from seeing. I can look without my glasses but I cannot see until I have them on. I think this is true of us all. We all have things that prevent us from seeing such as physical experiences that cause us to have trouble forming a true picture.  Let me provide an example. I was reading about a person that was driving into work and was following a car that was driving erratically. The car had a sign in the window that said, “Learning stick sorry for any delay.”

The lens the sign gave to the other driver changed how the situation was viewed. The author described how patient they became with the slow shifting and was honestly pretty impressed with how well the young driver was doing for still learning. The author then asked a question of themself that caused me to pause. Would I have been just as patient if the sign hadn’t been there? I can say for myself that the answer would have been “no”. There may have been a time in my life that the answer would have been different but right now, I have to admit that patience is not something that I have an abundance of.

It is important that we position ourselves in such a way that we can adjust our lenses to allow us to see what is in front of us. Not everyone is going to have a sign that says, “I can't pay my bills” or “It embarrasses me to have to read in front of others.” What we get to look at is the anger, discouragement, and disappointment that hides the deeper issue.  When you look at things long enough, that becomes all that you begin to recognize. You know this is true. Our brains are wired to find patterns. When you find this happening to you, adjust your lenses. Use the need for patterns to create a new lens by counting the amazing opportunities that are hidden all around us! 

May the lenses of your year allow you to “see” the tiny opportunities that present themselves to you on a daily basis; to take actions that will fulfill the grand vision for the weeks and months ahead!