I'm not sure how old I was when I had to start wearing eyeglasses, but I do remember that I wasn't the least bit happy about it. The last thing I needed was something else for the other kids to tease me about, and I knew they would ... I knew they would call me "4 Eyes" because that's the label they gave to most every kid who was cursed with the fate of poor vision. I say most every kid because there was a select group whose glasses seemed only to elevate their already golden status among their peers ... yep ... the cool kids became even cooler when they donned their spectacles while the rest of us suffered through the name-calling as best we could. I never understood that, you know, and I still don't, I suppose ... I don't get why it is that people who possess that mysterious "coolness factor" can wear butt-ugly clothes or shoes or jewelry or glasses or whatever else and suddenly those items are deemed as trend-setting rather than ugly just because they are cool. Since I wasn't one of the cool kids and got teased no matter what kind of glasses I wore, I was a happy camper when contact lenses came along ... until I got smacked in the eye and the resulting scar tissue on my cornea ended my contact lens-wearing days.
Choosing new frames for my glasses has never been something I've enjoyed doing ... it's one of those life events that never fails to cause me great angst. I maintain that switching to a new pair of glasses after you've worn the same ones for many years ranks right up there with having to find a new doctor or someone different to cut your hair. In fact, shopping for eyeglasses may well be even worse than shopping for clothes ... yep, that's how much I don't like it when I have to get new glasses. As I'm sure you've guessed by now, I had to visit the eye doctor a week or so ago and I just picked up my new glasses Tuesday evening. I won't tell you how many hours it took for me to finally settle on which new frames to purchase ... suffice it to say it took a flipping long time. I needed a larger field of vision this time around, so for the first time in decades ... seriously, decades ... I'm wearing glasses that are not rimless. They're black with a funky, swirly gray color on the inside, and they've certainly got the larger field of vision thing covered for sure. I'm still having a bit of trouble adjusting to them, but I think eventually I'll really like them.
I've always had a hard time accepting compliments, probably because I never think I deserve them. So yesterday, when my co-workers told me how much they liked my new glasses, my response was, "I don't know if I like them ... they're really different." Even when the younger folks I work with said, "I love your new glasses! Very hip and cool!" I would offer up the same reply ... "I don't know ... they're really different." Instead of graciously thanking them for their kind words and gestures as they attempted to make me feel more comfortable about my new glasses, I focused on how different the new glasses are from my previous ones ... until ... until one of my friends called me out ... she called me out on my misplaced focus in regard to my glasses with a most thought-provoking statement ... a statement that has caused me to think about a lot more than just my glasses when it comes to focus.
We were in the kitchen along with several other people ... several other people who were complimenting my new look. After hearing me say several times, "I don't know ... they're very different," my friend said, "Terrie, Terrie," and shook her head.
"What?" I asked, knowing my friend well enough to know that her "Terrie, Terrie," was quite probably the predecessor of one of her famously profound statements. She shook her head again, and again I asked, "What?"
"The more you focus on something, the bigger it gets," she said matter of factly. She knows me well enough to know that I don't always get the lesson the first time around, so she repeated her statement ... "The more you focus on something, Terrie, the bigger it gets." I've thought a lot about my friend's words since yesterday morning, and I've realized there's a mountain of truth in them ... a mountain of truth that has to do with way more important things than a pair of new glasses ... way more important things than a pair of glasses, friends ... way, way, way more important things.
"The more you focus on something, the bigger it gets." Think about it ... think a long while about it ... there's a big old gigantic mountain of truth in those words ... a big old gigantically humongous mountain of truth.
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