20/20 Vision and Blue Light Blocking Glasses
As you cast your vision for 2020, you probably didn’t think that you’d be spending most of your days wearing blue light blocking glasses.
20/20 vision. Do you remember the clever phrases and memes that were circulating twelve long months ago? As you cast your vision for 2020, you probably didn’t think that you’d be spending most of your days wearing blue light blocking glasses.
What were you predicting and planning?
Humans are abysmal forecasters of future events. The last year has been filled with moments that could not have been conjured up in any 2019 imagination. These experiences will, in myriad ways, leave us all marked.
Twenty-twenty was the year of the broken and beautiful. In life, fractures create fault lines. There is possibility in these spaces. Not everything that breaks is put back together, but what heals often becomes stronger.
Twenty-twenty will forever live in infamy as the year that you were a human who survived a pandemic. It is probable that your experience was not void of pain. As we prepare to turn the page on the calendar, you have a choice. How will you let the struggle of the last twelve months transform you?
There is a lot of talk about “bouncing back” as pockets of the world open. The thing is, people aren’t elastic. Mechanistic rules of Newtonian physics don’t apply to resilience of the human spirit. There is no going back. When faced with tragedy and challenge we can only move out and through. We arrive on the other side, different.
Every January is filled with excitement about a “new” start. This year is no exception. There is a psychological phenomenon that occurs on specific dates when your mind perceives a “clean slate.” We create arbitrary mental landmarks (birthdays, New Years, etc.) that make new chapters. The truth is, the world will not be a dramatically different place when you wake up on the 1st than it was the morning before. But for many, the date demarcates a refresh.
As we approach the New Year, take this opportunity to mentally clear the deck. When you do, hold these things in mind:
Planning for past danger does not protect you from future threat. The things you “wish you would have known” last December will not be the same hindsight understandings you will have twelve months from now. The biggest risks are often the ones you are blind to. Part of the inevitability of existence is the chaos of the unforeseen.
The salience of the struggles you faced this year will, over time, fade. Some lessons will be lost. (Humans are quick to forget.) Others will not. Which ones do you want to make sure that you hold on to?
You survived. You did it. You now have evidence that you can draw upon on for the rest of your life that you can do hard things. Really hard things. When you start to question yourself in the future, remember this.
As you turn the page on the calendar with resolve, move from aspiration to action. Wanting is not the same as pursuing. Planning is not the same as doing.
Wash and wear your glasses.
The future will always be blurry.
Keep looking for the light.
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