Young woman or an old hag! It depends….
The painting at the left can either be seen as an old haggish woman or a young girl. What do you see?
“All I see is trouble all around me.” That was the main theme of an e-mail I recently received. I was saddened by the circumstances my friend was facing but I was also reminded of something my mom used to say to me. “Don’t go looking for trouble.”
That is wise advise because what we look for is usually what we find. If I wake up in the morning just waiting for the first bad thing to happen, I won’t have to wait long. Even sadder, while I was looking for the bad thing to happen I will miss a dozen good things because I wasn’t looking for them. This is a natural function of the brain called selective perception.
We are bombarded with so many stimuli every moment that if we tried to process everything we would go crazy. The brain saves us from insanity by giving us the option to choice what to see.
A person late for an appointment will see every clock on the street. A hungry traveler will see any billboard with a picture of food on it.
A person going through difficult times might choose to dwell on the bad circumstances at the expense of missing the good things in their life. This is a disease I call “ingrown eyeballs.” Don’t look it up, I made it up the name because I have experienced it.
People with ingrown eyeballs are blinded to everyday blessings and oblivious to the needs of those around them. Their eyeball have turned backwards (that huts by the way) and they can only see their own problems. At Lazaras’ funeral, Martha had ingrown eyeballs. When Peter freaked out while miraculously “water walking” with Jesus, it was caused by a case of ingrown eyeballs. When my flight was delayed by three hours a few weeks ago my eyeballs flipped in an instant. I had to remind myself of these truths in order change my perception of the moment.
- Look for blessings and you will find them.
- Look for good, you will see it.
- Watch for opportunity to help some else, the opportunity will come.
- Look for the negative and it will surround you.
The choice is mine and yours. You WILL see what you look for. I dare you to choose to look for the good things today even if you are in the midst of challenging times. You will be amazed at how it changes your perspective on life.
[reminder]Have you ever had your perception changed by looking for the blessings in your life? Have you ever suffered from ingrown eyeballs?[/reminder]
Comments
So good, Ken! My eyeballs turned inward yesterday when my Internet went on periodic vacations and “nothing else went right either.” I nearly had to reach in physically and force my eyes to turn out. Thankfully, the truths I repeatedly recanted to myself about the blessings that still surrounded me eventually won out … just before my scheduled eye surgery.
Gratitude journals are great for this. I find the discipline of finding and writing about 5 things for which I am grateful each day is a great way to look for the positives in life.
I rember as a young teen that if I left the small things ruin my whole day they would. From then on if one little thing went wrong, like a runner in my stockings, I did not let it ruin the rest of my day. I would just think positive. My day would go just fine.
I see a squirrel.
A priest once told me to accept the situation and praise God; as soon as I did that my life began to improve. I’ve been praising Him ever since!
Well , I can’t suffer from ingrown eyeballs after that with these tears in my eyes. Thanks. That was beautiful.