When You’re Suffering Because You Only See Yourself Through Others’ Eyes
The best way to make peace with yourself is to make sure you’re wearing your own glasses
Image by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash
I went to the eye doctor today and had my vision checked. Unfortunately, it’s been getting blurry, thanks to Father Time. But like I always do, I waited until the problem got bad to try and fix it.
You’ve probably gotten one of these exams in your lifetime, so you know the routine.
Which is clearer? One or two?
Read the letters on the third line.
Better or worse?
How about this? Crisper? Sharper?
I was amazed at how clear things became with the switch of a lens.
And then I started thinking about life. How we go through it with blurry vision.
Everyone tells us what to see — parents, friends, lovers, and even strangers. They want us to look through their lenses and make sense of the world.
And we try. Boy, do we try.
Maybe we do it to blame our failures on someone else if we screw up. Maybe we do it because we need validation. Maybe we do it because we’re just so lost, we don’t know what else to do.
But as long as we try to wear another person’s glasses, the world is never going to be crystal clear.
The reason?
It’s their eyes and not ours. Their lenses, not ours. Their hurts and their past, their traumas and their tears, their fears and their failures.
Not ours.
And looking through others’ eyes is where the problem starts — the place where the images become skewed and illegible.
Example.
My family loves me, but I’m the weird one. The black sheep. The one who doesn’t attend church regularly or wear “age-appropriate” clothes. The one who allowed her fifteen-year-old to get a piercing and the one who’s not the sweet Southern belle they hoped for
And they never say anything negative. Okay, almost never.
It’s just a subtle turn of the head, a slight change in their body language, and I know they disapprove.
Those are the times when I see myself through their eyes, and it hurts a little.
That’s when I start to doubt myself.
Maybe I should act my age. Maybe I should get the tattoo erased. Maybe I shouldn’t be so introverted and stand-offish.
But you know what, when I look through my eyes, my vision is unclouded.
The tattoos are my messages to the world, and I’m proud of what they say. Letting my daughter get the piercing is my way of telling my loving, bookish, beautiful child to be her true self no matter what others think.
And when I look at my life that way?
It’s that sharp image at the eye doctors. Crystalline.
Now, Don’t get me wrong.
I believe you can learn so much by listening to others.
So my message to you isn’t to ignore other people’s advice or recklessly act on impulse.
The message is to consider others’ ideas but not exchange your glasses for theirs unless your heart tells you to.
The bottom line:
Understand this.
You own your eyes, and no one else does. You have a unique vision of life that doesn’t need to be changed just so someone else will see you as worthy.
Image one or image two?
The choice is yours, not theirs.