Last week I decided it was time to make an appointment with the eye-doctor and freshen up the old prescription.  It had been about two years and I had a suspicion my sight wasn’t as strong as it had been. Losing your sight, as I have been for over a decade now, is sort of a bizarre experience.  It’s not like spraining an ankle or catching a cold. It is a far slower and more gradual awareness that overcomes you.  One day you notice you can’t read a street sign, but have a sinking suspicion that at one time you could have. When you get your new glasses it’s like being in some sort of fantastic hyper-realistic dream – everything is so sharp and you notice items in the distance you never knew you could see.

This time however I wasn’t going to get a new pair of glasses – I had decided to make the switch to contacts.

My reasons were two-fold:

First, having given up my car over a year ago – I now walk or bike just about everywhere.  With the winter months approaching, I was not looking forward to another mist-filled season of walking to work blind.  While the rain isn’t enough to really get me wet, it does cover my glasses pretty instantly, and I’m forced to either keep wiping them free of drops, or abandoning them altogether and just walking in a blurry haze into downtown.

Second, I was tired of choosing which accessory to wear every day.  If I had some budget to throw-around, perhaps I could purchase a dozen pairs of glasses and enjoy some creativity in my presentation.  But I only have two pairs – my slightly broken but highly functional metal pair, and my Portland-hipster thick framed ones.  While I certainly enjoy both – wearing one or the other every day was as unbearable as having to wear a uniform to work would be.

So why hadn’t I made the switch years ago?  Simple… I’m a human being.  And as such I had filled my mind with a whole handful of insurmountable fears and reservations.  For example:

- My eyes are sensitive, and thus I wouldn’t want a piece of plastic jammed into them.
- It would be too much of a pain putting them in and taking them out each day.
- I’m going to get laser eyes surgery SOMEDAY, so why do anything TODAY?

The typical collection of excuses and misconceptions that lead to inaction.

My sister Jillian helped calm my first major fear: that I suffered from ultra-sensitive eyes and my precious peepers couldn’t possibly handle this thick piece of plastic shoved inside of them.  Her response was, “What are you, an idiot?  Who do you think likes having pieces of plastic shoved in their eyes?” I suddenly realized that I had no idea what a contact lens actually was.  I had never touched or really seen one up close.  At Lenscrafters I discovered what they are actually like and realized my fears had been completely incorrect and based on false concepts – these weren’t “lenses”, they were more like a thin film.  Not only that – once in, they were completely unnoticeable in my eyes.  In fact, I realized that it’s not contact lenses that are uncomfortable – it’s a giant lens contraption hooked to your ears and strapped across your face that is the uncomfortable solution. Contacts aren’t MORE uncomfortable than glasses, they are far LESS.

The second fear that it would be too difficult and thus a pain to take them in and out is already proving to be false.  Taking them out is a snap and just an added minute to my typical night-time routine.  Getting them in is still a bit of a trick, but each day I get better and this morning was rather easy.  It’s fascinating how the mind learns new activities. If you just trust your mind to it and don’t try to force your own solutions, the body quickly learns how to do what you want.

The final reason – that there is a better solution that I will eventually use, so no sense in taking this first step – is a major problem that I’ve been trying to work on recently.  While it is always important to keep a focus on where you want to get to and the life you wish to lead, day-dreaming is no substitute for improving your current state.  In the words of Bob Dylan, “When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?” It’s a bit selfish to be living in this modern time, with all the gifts I’ve been afforded – the sort of life almost no human being on earth could have dreamed of a mere century ago – but to say “This isn’t enough yet for me to be happy or to enjoy this gift. Sure I have a nice apartment, but I want a house.  Sure I have my own business, but I want a full company. The things I have are nice, but I want better.“  Seriously? So because there is something better out there, I can just ignore the current situation, or worse, look down upon it?  That is a rather foolish philosophy, but it serves its purpose, albeit a negative one. By placing the bar too high, we can easily ignore all the smaller steps we could be taking to improve our situation.

I’ve recently tried to take each of these major tasks or life goals and create smaller steps or solutions that I can begin tackling immediately.  Fixing my sight, which eventually will lead to laser eye surgery suddenly had some smaller steps.  Some included researching the laser procedure and pricing, which I have started.   But the other steps revolved around improving my sight in its current state with an eye exam and to explore contacts as a middle-ground.  That exploration took very little time, and now I get to see things massively better than I did before and I’m further down the road when I eventually have the money (or health insurance) to tackle the major goal of fixed sight.

So beyond the fact that I can see remarkably better than I could before, and I’m no longer forced to wear the same accessory each day like some sort of cartoon character – I have also learned an important lesson about moving forward in life and business.  When faced with a perceived obstacle, make sure your fears are grounded in reality, research and find out the facts, and remember that small steps take you a lot further than doing nothing at all.

Filed under: Health, Homelife by gspies
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