Seeing Through a New Lens

Do I see the light that I encounter instead of the darkness?

I got new glasses a few months ago. Despite two previous failed attempts at wearing glasses with progressive lens, I decided to try progressives for a third time. Surprisingly, I’ve been able to adapt to them. My eye doctor told me that I could. My brain and nervous system, however, did not believe it possible. Now they know better. They no longer get annoyed at the different focal lengths ground into the circles of glass suspended off my nose and ears. Sometimes they even forget that the glass circles are there.

Maybe it hasn’t all been about physical adaptation: for this latest attempt, I selected a new type of frame, something with a bit more flare that I would have dared try in the past. The result has been positive as occasionally people offer compliments. “They make you look x “, someone may say, filling in the “x” with a positive adjective or description. Since I like looking x, especially when x is something nice or flattering, I smile and say thanks. People’s comments remind me that I am actually wearing the new glasses. They also encourage me to wear them more.

“Are you able to see better?” someone recently asked. “Yes,” I replied, removing the glasses to clean a smudge. The person nodded. Only later did I realize that he hadn’t only been speaking about my physical vision. There had been an implication, a very subtle one, about something else, something more akin to perspective and my way of looking at the world. Did my new glasses offer me any new view of the world?

Prescription glasses cannot, of course, help me see the world any differently. They are designed to sharpen the image transmitted to my retina and that’s all. And yet, since that wise man asked me about the effect of the glasses on my perspective, I have found myself doing just that, trying to see the world a little differently when I wear them. In fact, wearing the new glasses reminds me to think about my point-of-view and the lens through which i interface with and interpret things and life around me. Even when I am not wearing them, I find myself being a bit more attentive to my frame of reference about other people and my surroundings.

That frame of reference is not always one that I’m proud of. It is clouded, sometimes, by judgment, ego, and mood. It is even blinded, other times, to what is right in front of me.

But it can be improved. Just as a shaped piece of glass can bring clarity to the eye’s ability to focus the world, so too can shaping of awareness and perspective bring insight into how I move in and through that world. Do I notice others beyond their immediate physical appearance? Do I notice the context of my daily interactions, doing so with an eye for what is good and what is positive rather than what is ugly, depressing, or challenging?

Do I look with an intent on the positive rather than one biased by negativity? Do I see the light that I encounter instead of the darkness?

In this blog, I will try to turn my attention on the light in my daily life. Since much of the light in the world pulses with variable intensity – some of it bright and sustaining and some of it weak and intermittent – I hope to focus on moments that seem meaningful to me, either as they occur or perhaps as I look back and reflect on ones that have already passed.

I can’t promise any great insights in my blog entries; just because I’ll wear my new glasses more this year doesn’t mean that I’ll be able to perceive beauty and wonder any better. All I can promise is to try to be more aware of how I am seeing the world and not just what I am physically visualizing that may be in front of me.

I’m very lucky to know that there is much good in life around me. Thanks for letting me share some of that with you in the months ahead.