As a child I was fascinated with ants, to the point my mother told me I better stop staring at those tiny things all the time or I’d ruin my eyesight. Whether my obsession with ants or bad genetics landed me in Coke bottle glasses at 12 is open to debate. I’m still fascinated with ants, and was thrilled to discover a daily march of leaf-cutter ants across the balcony at my hotel in Mexico last week.
“It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
Being hyper-focused on small things can be good sometimes, but for optimal well-being we need to get a bigger perspective from time to time. Small town living can be comparable to fixating on the activities in an ant farm. It’s fun and entertaining, but it’s also easy to get all worked up about things that really aren’t that important. Your world shrinks to what you focus on all the time, and you lose perspective.
For those of us who work on computers all day, medical professionals are now encouraging the adoption of the 20/20/20 rule to protect our vision from digital eyestrain. Every 20 minutes, look at an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
I’m thinking we should adopt a similar plan to preserve our perspective on life in general. Every so often, get away from your personal “ant farm” view. If you’re a rural dweller, go to the city for a few days. If you’re a townie, get out in nature. Talk to people who don’t look like, think like, or live like you. Engage with people with whom all you have in common is your status as a Homo sapiens (or a Neanderthal… apparently some of the new DNA test kits are identifying Neanderthal genes, so those relatives you wondered about all those years? Yep, very possible.).
There are a billion ways to do this, from travel to reading to taking a class, to trying out a new kind of food or a different activity you’ve never done before. For some of us who’ve allowed our vision to grow particularly myopic, just talking to someone from a different religion or race or culture — or [GASP] political affiliation — can sufficiently expand our pinhole-view of the world to something more expansive. And then don’t stop.
However you apply that 20/20/20 principle, make it a habit.
By NIKI TURNER – editor@editorht1885.com
