Seeing Beyond One’s Nose

I have been wearing glasses for about 45 years.  Without them, while I can “see,” the world is blurry and reading is extremely difficult.  Since my glasses sit upon my nose, you might say that without them, I truly have trouble “seeing” beyond my nose.  Thankfully, corrective glasses help my vision.  The ability to improve our sight has been in existence for almost 1000 years, with Arabian mathematician Alhazen being dubbed the “Father of Modern Optics” around the year 1000.  I am appreciative of all the advancements, including Ben Franklin’s creation of the bifocal, of which, due to the age of my eyes, I now take advantage of.  We clearly use technology to help improve our physical vision.

But what about our “mental” vision?  While there are methods of improving how far we can see with our eyes, what about how far we can see with our minds?  I was once told by an astute consultant, “If you can imagine it, we can create it.”  The limits of what we can do, what we can envision and how we perceive our surroundings are limited by the extent of our imagination and our willingness to see beyond what is directly in front of us.  By way of example, how often when a new “hot” product hits the market, or some new advancement becomes public, do we hear people say (if not ourselves), “that was so obvious, I could have [fill in the blank].”  Of course, once it comes into our sphere of vision, it seems as if it should have always been there and obviously, we should have thought it up.  In reality, however, is we did not because we were unable to see beyond our nose, limited by the scope in which we perceive the world around us.

This concept can be applied anywhere we look in life.  I remember early in my work career asking questions and being told “you only need to know about what you are working on.”  As my career advanced and I had the opportunity to “see” the big picture, the previous task I was assigned made MORE sense within the whole than as a stand-alone activity.  While most people are content with what is standing in front of them, it is the ability to “see” beyond our self-defined barriers that helps us to push forward, to think bigger thoughts and to achieve grander results.  Meeting up with like minded individuals helps to expand one’s vision.  The flip side is those with limited foresight tend to stand out more.  There have been many authors who point out that our view of our tomorrow is based solely on our experiences of yesterday, making it difficult to see “outside the box,” to expand our horizons and to be open to potentially new ideas that will broaden our views.

While I do not have any answers and there is no technology to assist, we have to be diligent and aware when we mentally walk down a path and come to the fork in the road.  One way leads to comfort, the same-ole-same-old and what we are most used to.  The other way is the unknown, fraught with whatever things our imagination can dream up.  Scary?  Maybe.  Exciting?  Most definitely.  And we might actually find out that once we cross over that threshold, the unknown might become the obvious.