Sight vs. Vision

[Music]

i just want to be very clear it’s not

that i can’t keep a job

it’s that i don’t know what i want to be

when i grow up

so first things first

change is all around us the title of

this was sight versus vision

i’d like to slightly change that i would

like to

ask you to go along with me on my

journey through site so i can share

some of the lessons i’ve learned about

vision

but like any journey you have some prep

work

to do so the first thing i’m going to

ask is how many of you out there have

that one piece of clothing

the shirt the sweater the jeans the

sweatpants

that your friends and your family can’t

stand

right we all have that

yet in spite of all

of that evidence the data it’s stained

it’s stretched it’s

torn it’s out of fashion it remains

stubbornly in our closet

i have this jacket this jacket is no

longer fashionable

it’s frayed my favorite pocket

is the one that hangs out

yet this coat is held together by

memories it’s held together by

experiences

and it brings me comfort

the ability to ignore reality to protect

our memories our experiences and our

comfort

is uniquely human it’s also a good

working definition of resistance to

change

so when you start to prepare to go on a

journey

you have to prepare to be very

uncomfortable

we have to take those memories that no

longer

mean what we think and get them out of

our closet

before we start the journey again i’m

going to offer you my definition

of sight sight is a physiological

and neurological system to gather data

nothing more nothing less

how many people in this room have 20 20

vision

okay how many of you have corrected 20

20 vision

excellent so your eyesight’s perfect

your eyes are fine i’m going to

challenge you on that

i would like all of you to form a

triangle with your fingers

keeping both eyes open

that light in the ceiling put it in the

center of that triangle

now close your left eye open it

close your right eye what did you see

one eye works as well as when both eyes

are open

and the other one is skewed

so no matter how perfect our 2020 vision

is

we’re not always getting the same data

from sources that we trust

so let’s say that’s the first thing

we’re taking on our trip after getting

rid

of our memories

at the age of 35 i was blessed i had

2010 vision and one eye in 2015 in the

other

glasses i didn’t need no stinking

glasses

i was proud of that sort of very

comfortable in the fact that

my eyes were about as good as you can

get

at the age of 40 on this journey i’m

grading papers

and i’m reading research on my laptop

and the words start to merge

and then the sentences start to merge

pretty soon the paragraphs are starting

to merge

all the evidence that my eyes were aging

was there

but because i’m a human being i did what

most of us would do

drive right past the optometrist to the

pharmacy

to the kiosk for my 1.5 power glasses

because there was nothing wrong with my

sight my eyes were tired

and i told myself that until i was 45

when suddenly distance was an issue

now let me give you a little bit of

context the red brick

you see in these buildings all over

campus has a side that’s very granular

sandy if you rub it it actually comes

off in your fingers when your vision is

2010 you can see that granular surface

from 20 yards away

i am now straining through the

windshield of my car

to try and read the road sign that just

went by

dramatic change a little bit

disconcerting actually

more evidence was coming my way

and as an informed adult i did exactly

what you can anticipate i threw out

those 1.5 power glasses

drove right to the pharmacy and got the

2.0s

because i didn’t realize how tired my

eyes were

age of 50 i was about to be informed

that my world was going to change

i was going to be told that i had

astigmatism

now for those of you that aren’t

familiar with astigmatism

the cornea the lens of your eyes is

supposed to be

smooth clean just perfect

but over time and due to some different

conditions

it becomes like a rugby ball

or assumes the shape of a soccer ball

well there’s a problem since the cornea

is supposed to be flat and let

light in throughout your eye it’s

suddenly bouncing off the uneven

surfaces

i’m in the optometrist office about to

find this out he has one of those fancy

machines he puts up to my face

it looks like a sci-fi version of a

mardi gras mask

if you’ve ever seen that one up there

and he says i’m going to start turning

these dials

you tell me when something happens

i hear the click i hear another click

suddenly every light in the room

explodes

and i’m seeing everything so clear

and it was the first aha moment in my

journey

that my unwillingness to pay attention

to all the facts i had accepted

that i would live in darkness and

without clarity

but the optometrist he did a great job

diagnosed it

wrote that prescription i went and got

my trifocals

the issues were all taken care of

then i had my second aha moment

for those of you that have worn bifocals

or trifocals and can remember back to

the first time you put them on

and the whole world moves you learn that

walking downstairs and stepping off the

curbs is a whole new life experience

with trifocals

the aha moment was you may finally admit

you need

glasses you may even seek out

the best lenses but if you don’t

practice

using them if you don’t incorporate them

into your

every day life

it’s a wasted effort

so that was a journey through my own

site

that paralleled my journey of

understanding

about the term vision vision

in my book is the interpretation of the

data

that your site gathered

in 1988 i was the admitting charge nurse

at the baltimore shock trauma center in

the neurotrauma unit

i was working evening shifts a gentleman

was admitted

brought in and i’m doing his neuro exam

just like anybody who watches grey’s

anatomy because that’s such an exact

science of the show

i had the flashlight so i went across

the eyes the pupils moved like they were

supposed to

i said follow my finger up down

back forth and that person tracked

everything one problem

they were blind the next

lesson the gentleman had been hit with a

baseball bat

to the back of the skull his eyes were

responding

because he still had his sight his data

gathering mechanisms

the baseball bat scrambled his visual

cortex

the interpretation part of the brain

so the next learning hit me at that

point as a brand new nurse

that i can have vision without sight

but i can’t have sight without vision

so i continued to look at my journey

through glasses

and challenge my journey through vision

first stop is what is nearsighted

vision i only had to look at myself

i was a detailed person i was type a

i was a project manager i think the

classic term for someone like me is i

was anal

i was so about my project i never saw

how it plugged

into the bigger picture and if the

bigger picture dictated a change

in my project i fought it

because it was going to make me take

that coat off

and i wasn’t ready for it

farsighted as you mature

especially in the business world i

suddenly had far sighted vision

i was all about the big picture you have

to understand where we’re going

as i would run through the stop signs

right in front of me

i lost the ability to look at the

details in my life and sometimes

revel in the wonder of the details

because i always was looking to the

future

a perfect example of this is anyone who

has ever worked with a person who got a

promotion

and the very next thing they did was

start planning their next promotion

and they forget about all the details in

between

but just like sight the biggest

threat to your vision

is what i will call visual astigmatism

each of these represent biases

assumptions to ask

refusal to accept denial

in other words visual astigmatism

is your acceptance of darkness

and your willingness to live without

clarity

now the problems i’ve discussed in

vision

are correctable with

sight you eventually stop driving by and

actually go to the optometrist

but if you want to correct your vision

there’s only one expert that can do it

and that’s you

you take the memories and keep the

appropriate ones

can you start listening to the people

around you

are you willing to accept change

so where an optometrist might write a

prescription

you need to sit and reflect with the

most important person

in your life and that’s yourself

now step away from this as we get kind

of heavy and deep

i’m going to ask how many people in the

room have multiple pairs of sunglasses

okay guilty is charged

i have this pair of sunglasses for when

i hike

when i camp it’s sort of my

homage to macgyver i like to have those

when i fish i have these

and these are for absolutely everything

else

how many of you have gone to the

pharmacy to target to whatever store

and looked up in that little piece of

reflective plastic and went

awesome for bethany these would be

great in the car

they’ll go nuts when they see me in

these

i’ll leave you with a question how many

of you have spent

that much time selecting

cleaning and learning to use your

internal lenses

thank you