There Is None So Blind
You know the old saying: “There is none so blind as one who will not see.” We hear it and we nod sagely, then go on our merry way, secure in the smug confidence that this old proverb doesn’t apply to US for goodness’ sake.
Well, let’s slip our little pack of confidence back into our pockets for a moment because we – you and I – are almost certainly blind as a bat about many of the things in our lives… and willfully so. Not sure you agree? Wait… consider what just happened to me.
Early this year I got new glasses, but within two or three months I was having trouble seeing clearly with my right eye. So back to the optometrist I went and asked them to make yet another new lens. They tested and tested, and finally announced that it wasn’t the lens causing the difficulty. They suggested (very gently) that I may have already developed a bit of cataract in that eye.
You know, the old white cornea thing. Scales on the eyes.
My reaction was immediate and visceral. No way – that kind of stuff never happens to me, so I’m certainly not going to an eye doctor for an operation. I could feel myself rejecting the idea, almost offended at the suggestion.
Now, I should say right up front that I’m not prejudiced about eye surgeons. I even did some narration work on a couple of videos when Dr. Junsuke Akura, an award winning eye surgeon from Kushimoto Japan, documented some new procedures and instruments he had developed. I understand the procedures and probably know more about them than the average person. It’s just that none of that applied to me.
Of course, that was my denial speaking.
And as soon as I recognized it happening, I kicked the denial aside and made an appointment for detailed testing. Sure enough, they found whitening of the lens and suggested replacing it with a new plastic lens. Again, since I know very well the power of denial and the delay tactics that the ego can throw in my way, I told the doctor I wanted to proceed immediately. “Sooner is better,” I told him.
They did that operation, and it was almost anti-climax. It took an hour or two to prep me, but the actual procedure required only about 15 minutes.
A technical point – one of the things I had been uneasy about was having somebody working directly on my eyeball. That’s a scary thought, right? But the surgeon does everything from the side, way out in the peripheral area. This means I didn’t actually see anything that was going on.
As I say, anticlimax. It was very quickly finished, and I was out and left the hospital two hours later. In fact, it was a lovely day so I walked the mile and a half home, feeling terrific.
They had placed an opaque plastic eye protector over my eye, so the next day I went back to have them take it off. The first thing they did was test my “new” vision. I was flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. I could actually see well with my right eye for the first time in my life. The eye had always been ultra-near sighted, and now that was mostly corrected.
And the colors!
Where everything was still sort of yellowish and low-contrast with my left eye, my right eye now saw richer colors and in greater depth than I’d seen in years. Wow… I was already glad I’d done this.
Score one more point for kicking denial out the door.
I’ve already made an appointment to go back next month and fix the other eye as well. And I’m looking forward to it.
But I wouldn’t have had the benefit of any of this if I’d listened to the voice of denial. I’d still be trying to convince myself that everything was fine… my eyes were just “changing focus” a bit… I’m immune to that kind of thing… I’m too young to have a cataract… and so forth.
Now back to the opening quote: “There is none so blind as one who WILL not see.”
The other day some of our friends got together, and one of them was telling about a snake farm he had visited. There was a show, during which they demonstrated “milking” a cobra for its venom. They invited people from the audience to come up and see the snakes up close, even touch them. My friend did go up (the only one in the audience so inclined) and ended up petting snakes while one was draped around his neck.
Most of our group was amazed and (a bit morbidly) fascinated, but one man in particular was practically going into convulsions from merely hearing about snakes.
Now, here’s what’s interesting. I offered to help him get rid of this fear of snakes with EFT (I’d actually told all of them about EFT weeks earlier and even taught them how to do it). The man refused my offer. He asked, almost offended, “Why would I ever want to stop hating snakes?”
When we’re in the grips of a problem (or phobia), we can’t imagine wanting to shed that problem. A new salesman is so afraid to make sales calls (the famous call reluctance), that he resists developing call eagerness. He just can’t imagine loving it. He hates it so much he doesn’t want to make it better.
A friend was going through bad times with his wife. I suggested they go to counseling together, plus I mentioned a few things he could do to revive the old feelings of love he’d felt for his wife early on.
“No way,” he exclaimed. “I don’t WANT to love her now.”
One coaching client was helplessly watching his business go down the drain. He’d come to me to help him “adjust to the loss and find something else to do.” When I suggested that there were a number of things he could do to save his business, revitalize it and put it on solid footing, his reply was much like the out-of-love husband. “I’m so sick of this business now, I just want to get shut of it as quickly as I can.”
The notion that the situation could be remedied was, in every case, unwelcome because it clashed with already entrenched attitudes. They believed one way, and they couldn’t find enough wiggle room in their “reality” to even think of any other possibilities – certainly not warming up to something they hated. It’s denial of any other possibilities.
Einstein said it well: “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.”
And the person who refuses – REFUSES – to think of other possibilities is being willfully blind.
There is none so blind as one who WILL not see.
So what problems are you refusing to fix because you can’t imagine wanting – being free – to do what you currently loathe? Most procrastination is caused by this. So are many other avoidance behaviors.
What’s the cure? How do we change the things we don’t WANT to change? Fix the problems we don’t WANT to fix? Indeed, how?
But of course, we already know the answer to this. We’ve been studying it for years, haven’t we? Einstein stated it very elegantly. “We must learn to see the world anew.” The world. And ourselves. And our problems.
See it all anew. If there is none so blind as one who WILL not see, then do the opposite. Force yourself to look at, examine and accept alternate possibilities for everything you avoid. Face your fears. Look them squarely in the eye. Don’t allow them to take your life away from you.
When we do that, a strange thing begins to happen. Fear is nothing but an attitude, not a truth, and because of that, it can dissipate or be changed just like any other attitude. Even the most terrifying, paralyzing fears can be changed.
Here’s a little secret:
I was once terribly afraid of snakes. Just as phobic as the friend I mentioned, going into writhing convulsions at the mere thought. Now I’m not.
In my particular case, I dissolved the fear using EFT. There are other techniques as well, but the point is to become proactive. Do something about any fear, any anger, any dislike that robs you of choices. It all begins with choosing to look and see. Look at what you fear. Face it. It’s called being tough-minded.
One way, of course, is to place yourself, your imagination, into the future when the problem has been solved and it no longer has any power over you. Then spend some time with it until the idea no longer feels new or threatening to you.
Some fears are sensible. Don’t jump off the roof of a high-rise building. But some people even do that – with parachutes – and it’s called BASE jumping.
Or don’t get near wild lions or tigers. And of course some people – lion tamers – do that as well.
Don’t play with fire? Fire eaters. Don’t put knives in your mouth? Sword swallowers.
Don’t trust anybody of the opposite sex? Look at all the happily married couples in the world.
I don’t care what you’re afraid of, nor how hard you’ve been resisting changing it, change IS possible. It’s not only possible, it’s also desirable. In other words, if you don’t face and conquer your fears, you’re deliberately choosing poverty in that part of your life.
So perhaps, turning it around, we should say: “There is none who sees so clearly as one who WILL see… one who refuses not to see.”
Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles
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