Improving Your Vision

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for …” Sir John Lubbock

Over the past 5 months, I have experienced sequential bilateral posterior vitreous detachments (PVD).  Like many other physical maladies I have experienced in the past of which I had studied and helped manage as a physician for others, I had no real appreciation for what this actually entailed until it happened to me.

In case you have forgotten PVD, according to the American Society of Retinal Surgeons, is “a natural change that occurs during adulthood, when the vitreous gel that fills the eye separates from the retina …”  The main symptoms are “floaters” and flashes of light, but these are not the garden variety tiny floaters that I have had in the past but rather “floater waves,” and the flashes of light are much more intense and distracting than anything I have ever experienced. 

As these floaters and flashes occur (I’m told they will eventually diminish), my vision is often temporarily distorted when I look in certain directions or under certain lighting conditions.  As I wait for the floaters to pass or settle (like snow globes), I have had to train myself to not focus on the floaters, but rather to look beyond them in my visual field.   I’ve literally had to train myself to “see” differently. 

And so it is with much of what we experience in our thoughts.  We can focus on what is immediately in front of us (on what “comes to mind”), or we can choose to “refocus” on the larger picture, on a different interpretation, or on something completely different.    As you enter your upcoming week, what are you choosing to “focus” on?   Will focusing on this help you be who you want to be and achieve the outcomes you desire?  If not, what would a “refocus” look like for you.     

We can actually improve our “vision” as we get older, despite what my ophthalmologist says … I’m happy to be proving him wrong.