Seeing the World through the Prisms of a Lazyeyed Realist
[Applause]
we are all lazy
in one or another way and let me ask you
this
do you know that there are people with
lazy eyes
oh yes in reality there are many people
who has this ailment
and it doesn’t mean that they’re tired
of seeing you no not at all
it’s simply because they have an eye
misalignment condition
called strabismus and i am one of the
many
who has this condition and by hardly
looking at you today
ladies and gentlemen i want to tell you
the story about my current reality
you know from the young frankenstein
harry potter to the man in black and
even lion king
pop culture has always had a tendency to
associate people looking like me
with utter ugliness and eccentricity
if you have ever paid attention those
characters
have mainly been portrayed as crazy
out of their mind or just bizarre
so i do believe that that has molds
society’s perception
about us people with not so focused eyes
or in other words people who has
traubismus
so strabismus is basically a medical
term
referred for an eye misalignment
condition where both of your eyes
cannot look at the same time at the same
place
you cannot look directly at the same
place at the same time
without one turning inward upward
downward or outward as you can see we
lazy-eyed people
come in so many different forms shapes
and sizes people who have been diagnosed
with strabismus tend to have
eye pain blurry vision headaches and in
some particular cases
people tend to develop double vision
where you see
images in a double as well as it affects
your movement
and balance which is not the case for me
and i do not need surgery to go through
my life
in my case specifically i cannot look
at the same place at the object for more
than a few seconds
before my weak eye wanders off leaving
my dominant eye
slash normal eye fixated on the object
alone and sending signal to my brain
you could have probably heard strabismus
being more commonly referred as
wandering eye crossed eye squint
lazy eye or how i once heard someone
hilariously put it like
recreationally oriented eyes not lazy at
all
as we have no control over them or
whatsoever
so growing up as a lazy eye has been
both a blessing
and a curse it was this unique thing
about me that helped me to shape my
identity
and who i am at the same time
my lazy eye has been the reason for my
all cheapest jokes
for now nearly 22 years i have milked my
miscellaneous for humor
every time i meet someone new i feel
the urge to crack wise about my lazy eye
in order to let them know that it is
okay
and that makes them uncomfortable being
around me tiptoeing around this issue or
being sensitive
about my eyes but in some cases
some people do not even wait for my joke
and feel the urge of bringing it out in
the most
embarrassing way possible i clearly
remember hurtful commands
that followed me around like are you
actually
talking to me or who are you looking at
i’m standing right in front of you
laughing as they say it because my eyes
weren’t entirely focused on the person i
was talking to
those commands may always left me
angry frustrated and in tears
i do understand that that some of the
people had
probably had never intention of being
hurtful
but back then i had no choice no come
back
other than silently taking it
inevitably i started avoid making eye
contact as much
as possible in such circumstances where
eye contact became
absolutely necessary i forced my eyes
to look on the person by constantly and
excessively winking
and blinking just to be able to get my
eye focus back
in a hope to get more synchronized
eyeball movement
just for a little bit longer before it
gazes away
again and again
so all these unsolved commands had built
up a very strong foundation for the very
distant
and introverted mubarak that you see
today
by that point i started pressurizing
myself to do more eye exercises
wear eye patches do whatever i found
online in hopes that
i could fix it on my own and it would go
away without a cosmetic surgery
how naive hoping that people wouldn’t
even notice my misaligned eye
most folks didn’t notice but it didn’t
make me less
uncomfortable being around them you know
constantly
thinking about where my eyes are focused
at and
struggles with having any kind of
self-esteem
that affected my whole life
honestly all these remarks
indeed overwhelmed me and made me
question my
appearance and ultimately my identity
it is the small things that made me want
to spend less time around people
i didn’t feel like justifying myself i
was better off alone
at least i pretended to be
however now as i’m graduating very soon
and trying to build my
own career where i have to practice
socializing and networking
i became more self-conscious about my
appearance
before you say anything i know i know
that people
should not be judged by the way they
look
but believe me they are
as a matter of fact let’s see how many
of you sitting here today
have encountered the similar situation
where you have been judged
or you were the one who actually judged
someone by their looks
be it consciously or unconsciously
doesn’t matter
just think about it see we are
all guilty of that even the nicest
and kindest of all of us sometimes fall
on the trap of physical attraction
not to mention some other factors
so for all these long years while
contemplating who i was
i always felt like i was never good
enough i was always looking for things
to fix something about myself
i was never comfortable being just
myself
you know so at that times
i always had an idea that
i don’t know i would get happy one day i
developed
so-called addictions addiction of
self-consciousness that constantly
reportedly told me that
you are going to get happy when you get
a surgery or
as soon as i get a surgery i would get
attention
recognition and ultimately self-love
at that point i’ve developed destination
addiction
where i always thought that happiness
were somewhere in the future
i almost forgot i was so caught up in my
world of fantasies and fake scenarios
imagining how i would get a surgery
and everything would be perfect after
that that i almost forgot
to live in a moment and enjoying every
minute of it
at the same time how exciting the idea
of getting
surgery back then was for me it always
left me
with a room full of questions will i
ever be viewed
as who i was whether my family and
friends
will see me as the same lazy item barack
or i don’t know whether i will be
perceived as weak
and shallow for getting an eye surgery
these questions were indeed hard to
answer
but even though a scenario of getting a
surgery had a very small chance of
success
and it had to be performed multiple
consecutive times
just to get my iners fixed and there was
no guarantee that the condition wouldn’t
come back in a couple of years
i was still down for it i was down for
putting myself through it
just because i wanted to feel the
confidence of looking people in the eye
as the days that i was looking forward
all my life was approaching
i suddenly felt that i wasn’t ready
i wasn’t ready for it i didn’t want to
put myself
under the knife just because i wanted
validation from other people so badly
it shouldn’t require surgery to feel
just me you know it all didn’t feel
right
so i decided not to get it as i reflect
back
now i’m sure that if i went along with
that surgery
it would have felt like i’ve lost a part
of me
you know once this unique feature about
me was gone my self-image would have
suffered enormously
and probably i would have lost easy
going and goofy side of me after all
so i’m grateful that i realized that
sooner than later
the turning point in my life was when i
came across an article about how
self-pity
isolation and constantly finding fold in
myself
was actually destroying me and my life
and the only way to stand and the only
way to find that secret component of
happiness
that i was looking for my whole life was
standing
in a path of self-acceptance and
self-compassion
i reflected on this statement and
started making some active changes
towards it
and came to the recognition that i was
living my life under the shadows of
answers the shield of self-doubt
constantly running from the feeling of
embarrassment
disappointment self-doubt and
frustration
no matter how hard it was for me to dig
deep down
into my insecurities i realized that
i was tripped i was living my life
trapped in a victim mentality
where i just assumed that oh all the bad
things
happened to me and only me
and the worst part of all it was all in
my head
and at the time i was absolutely unaware
of it
i was just living my life under the
shadows of self-doubt and insecurities
and here i am today that shy
self-conscious girl
standing on this stage and sharing my
journey with you
as i walked down the space of
self-acceptance i learned one important
lesson
that every time i entered the zone of
self-pity
i would stop take a deep breath
and think of ways turning it into
compassion
by continuously repeating to myself that
it is okay
to feel sad or bummed out for a while
but it doesn’t mean that i should ignore
the problem isolate myself
turn into an antisocial individual
passing up on life opportunities
no i finally saw how being vulnerable
and compassionate about your
insecurities was actually an attractive
quality
after all but how
why i see you wonder and let me tell you
because this insecurities that what
makes me real
i’m not some pretense fictional
character right
i am uniquely me with my own special mix
of flaws insecurities and foolishness to
contend with
we just have to understand that every
one of us has challenges
yes today mind can be having strabismus
and you can be conscious about your body
shape
facial structure your hate
or your stretch marks so what
there are unique features in all of us
we just
need to realize that these small
problems over which we have no control
do not define who we are they do not
define how we feel about ourselves
so i started to celebrate my strengths
i made and still making a conscious
effort to forgive myself
i made a commitment to stop comparing
myself to others
i started looking people into the eye
again and making eye contact
even if someone will notice and decides
to command on my
not really focused eyes so what
so what i’m gonna put on the biggest
smile
and will be amazing the way i am
without overthinking it the most vital
part is
realizing who you truly are and taking
the first steps towards self-acceptance
self-acceptance and compassion can be so
empowering that it energizes you to push
your boundaries
and makes you feel comfortable in your
own skin
so i ask you this please fully focus
on accepting yourself and loving
yourself
without worrying about judgments
rejections and what would you look like
in the eyes of other people
it’s not important the most important
part
is discovering who you truly are
and that’s why it requires a leap of
faith
into discovering your true identity
there is the author of perceptions about
yourself
is you and it should only be you
because deep down we all know that our
inner world
is built from the perceptions and
feelings
we have about ourselves our own
identities
at the end of the day we are what we
perceive
right if you are in a similar situation
like me
if you are under avalanche of
insecurities and judgments of society
and struggling to execute on something
big in your life
i ask you this remember that
we never realize who we truly are
unless we discard who we pretend to be
so i call on you today not to be afraid
of accepting and loving yourself just
the way you are because each and every
of us
is beautiful and worthy to know the way
we are
and it would be a shame not to find out
your true
real authentic selves throughout your
lives
thank you very much
you