Rose Coloured Glasses
I got some new glasses a little while ago and for the first time since I started wearing glasses I splurged! I figured that since they need to be on my face every day, all day, that I should get ones that I really like. More importantly, this time I actually got the scratch resistant coating and the anti glare. Those were things I never spent the extra on but that were thrown in for free when I got my glasses at the optometrist. The other great advantage of getting glasses there was the guarantee. You just feel safer when you know, should something happen, someone has your back.
New glasses have also gotten me thinking about parallels with life. I think everyone would feel much safer and calmer if they had a guarantee for life too. That might be what most people assume a marriage will be. A guarantee that someone will be there to help them should the times get tough. After all, it's right in the vows. For better OR WORSE, in SICKNESS and health, for richer or POORER. Unfortunately a lot of times when we enter into a marriage we assume it's all going to be better, healthier, richer. Once the first worse, sick, poor part comes along we are in shock! "This wasn't what I signed up for! I though we were going to be different than every other couple! We were going to be perfect, with no struggles and no hard times! I thought we were perfect!"
Some of my thinking about new glasses also applies to this. When I went for my check up it turned out that my eyes have actually improved over the last 2 years. It's the first time since I started wearing glasses in high school that my eyes have gotten stronger. I don't know exactly what has caused this change. I have some ideas and speculations but I'll leave them for now. The parallel I see with this and life though is that for the most part things just do continue to get worse and worse unless we actively do something to change it. Sometimes that change needs to be a big one but other times it can be just a subtle shift in how we see things.
That brings me to my other observation about new glasses. I found one of my really old pairs while I was clearing out some things and put them on. After all my prescription got a bit better so these ones might actually be just right now. As I looked around the room I immediately noticed the glare from the light. It was very distracting and bothersome. However, up until only about a month ago I had never had anti glare glasses. It's amazing how we get used to things being a certain way, even if that way is not so great. Sometimes this is a good strategy. There are things in our lives that are bothersome that we can do absolutely nothing about. In these cases it would be good if we were able to incorporate that into our lives and get so used to it that we don't even notice any longer. In other cases we could have a problem that is very much fixable. In those cases being desensitized to the issue could cause us to be apathetic and not work to fix a problem that could help us live up to our potential. In this case it might just take looking through some new lenses to help us see where we can improve.
The reason I have always hated wearing glasses is because of the sun. I have tried prescription sunglasses a few times and always been VERY disappointed. They always end up being not dark enough, uncomfortable and unfashionable. Though I did have a pair I hated wearing them and found they did very little by way of blocking out the sun. When the optometrist told me about the deal they had I expressed my concerns and showed her the offending pair. When she looked at them she assured me that they could do a LOT more to make a better pair of prescription sunglasses and showed me some samples. When I looked at the styles that were being offered for the deal I feel in love! They could make pretty and fashionable sunglasses with prescription lenses?!?!? How could this be so?!?! Why had I been suffering (suffering might be a bit extreme language) with my ugly and sub par glasses when these had been available all along? This is when I learned another valuable life lesson. I had been going to glasses stores and listening to them as they told me things like, "This is as dark as we can make them." and "We can't make such big lenses since the curve gets to big and changes the prescription." Though this might have been true in their location it was not true of my optometrist. Lesson learned: Make sure you're listening to the right people. Sometimes when someone tells you it can't be done we need to check around and make sure that it actually is an impossibility, not just a limitation. Some times "it can't be done" really means "you have to look elsewhere." I got those prescription sunglasses from my optometrists office and for the first time I am excited to wear them! I'm hoping for sunny days and looking for excuses to put on my fashionable sunglasses instead of squinting in the sunshine, giving myself headaches and (as my mother continues to inform me) possibly causing the formation of cataracts from not protecting my eyes.
So what have I learned from getting new glasses?
New glasses have also gotten me thinking about parallels with life. I think everyone would feel much safer and calmer if they had a guarantee for life too. That might be what most people assume a marriage will be. A guarantee that someone will be there to help them should the times get tough. After all, it's right in the vows. For better OR WORSE, in SICKNESS and health, for richer or POORER. Unfortunately a lot of times when we enter into a marriage we assume it's all going to be better, healthier, richer. Once the first worse, sick, poor part comes along we are in shock! "This wasn't what I signed up for! I though we were going to be different than every other couple! We were going to be perfect, with no struggles and no hard times! I thought we were perfect!"
Some of my thinking about new glasses also applies to this. When I went for my check up it turned out that my eyes have actually improved over the last 2 years. It's the first time since I started wearing glasses in high school that my eyes have gotten stronger. I don't know exactly what has caused this change. I have some ideas and speculations but I'll leave them for now. The parallel I see with this and life though is that for the most part things just do continue to get worse and worse unless we actively do something to change it. Sometimes that change needs to be a big one but other times it can be just a subtle shift in how we see things.
That brings me to my other observation about new glasses. I found one of my really old pairs while I was clearing out some things and put them on. After all my prescription got a bit better so these ones might actually be just right now. As I looked around the room I immediately noticed the glare from the light. It was very distracting and bothersome. However, up until only about a month ago I had never had anti glare glasses. It's amazing how we get used to things being a certain way, even if that way is not so great. Sometimes this is a good strategy. There are things in our lives that are bothersome that we can do absolutely nothing about. In these cases it would be good if we were able to incorporate that into our lives and get so used to it that we don't even notice any longer. In other cases we could have a problem that is very much fixable. In those cases being desensitized to the issue could cause us to be apathetic and not work to fix a problem that could help us live up to our potential. In this case it might just take looking through some new lenses to help us see where we can improve.
The reason I have always hated wearing glasses is because of the sun. I have tried prescription sunglasses a few times and always been VERY disappointed. They always end up being not dark enough, uncomfortable and unfashionable. Though I did have a pair I hated wearing them and found they did very little by way of blocking out the sun. When the optometrist told me about the deal they had I expressed my concerns and showed her the offending pair. When she looked at them she assured me that they could do a LOT more to make a better pair of prescription sunglasses and showed me some samples. When I looked at the styles that were being offered for the deal I feel in love! They could make pretty and fashionable sunglasses with prescription lenses?!?!? How could this be so?!?! Why had I been suffering (suffering might be a bit extreme language) with my ugly and sub par glasses when these had been available all along? This is when I learned another valuable life lesson. I had been going to glasses stores and listening to them as they told me things like, "This is as dark as we can make them." and "We can't make such big lenses since the curve gets to big and changes the prescription." Though this might have been true in their location it was not true of my optometrist. Lesson learned: Make sure you're listening to the right people. Sometimes when someone tells you it can't be done we need to check around and make sure that it actually is an impossibility, not just a limitation. Some times "it can't be done" really means "you have to look elsewhere." I got those prescription sunglasses from my optometrists office and for the first time I am excited to wear them! I'm hoping for sunny days and looking for excuses to put on my fashionable sunglasses instead of squinting in the sunshine, giving myself headaches and (as my mother continues to inform me) possibly causing the formation of cataracts from not protecting my eyes.
So what have I learned from getting new glasses?
- Sometimes we just need to look at things in a different light.
- There are times when a splurge is necessary (This is coming from someone that never splurges. Those of you that splurge on everything might need to learn when it's okay to cut corners.)
- Getting used to a problem doesn't make it go away and can sometimes prevent us from making simple changes to improve our quality of life.
- We can't believe everything we are told, sometimes we need a second opinion and
- A really cute and fashionable pair of sunglasses really can make an outfit. :)
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