One day last November I woke up with blurry vision. After months of evaluation, they think it’s just a need for different, stronger glasses.

The thing I was hung up on was the sudden onset. Did my eyes change and get so bad overnight?

Not in this case. There were tiny minute changes over time – since my last pair of glasses.

All these unnoticed changes accumulated and finally there were enough of them that their effect became noticeable to me.

I think this is lilke any growth we have – or wish to have.

When we put our minds towards changing something in our lives, we expend large amounts of energy on it. Do you know the saying – “Every day in every way I get better and better.”?

It doesn’t say “in just one day I’ll BE all better”. It says every day.

So you keep plugging away, being disciplined with the techniques you’ve learned to make the changes happen.

I’m sure you know that so many times, you see nothing happening.

You get discouraged

You wonder ‘’is this working?” and sometimes you even say “why bother.”

You’ve seen no evidence of any change, any growh.

But then one day, some personal crisis occurs and you surprise yourself at your response. It’s not like you. Even your friends or family say “wow, what happened to you. Where did the Joe I know go?” because you’re not reacting the way YOU ALWAYS DID. They are astounded . You are pleased.

Did this change happen overnight.

No

It built up but the effect of the “day by day you’re getting better and better” became apparent after all those months (and sometimes years) of change.

It’s only then that you realize something was really happening and it was worth it.

Then comes another intersting part.

I had to get used to my glasses. You’d think that the magic would be for everything to be seen perfectly once I don the new pair.

Not necessarily. I wear trifocals so there’s a bit of a high wire trick to balance the three different fields of vision.

Oh and then then there’s the difference between night and day

Your brain has to get used to the change in the lenses. It requires a period of adjustment. Whereas something looks great for me up close, I still have problems with night distance vision. So all is not hunky dory in the OK Corral.

More adjustmennts are necessary.

Same with your growth. In both cases we can call it fine tuning. You may have used some specific techniques to learn how to better handle condition A. But it’s possible that those same techniques are not as ingrained to help you with Condition A if it’s prolonged for instance. Or maybe if it’s more intense. It takes more adjustment. And that’s ok too.

It’s like getting different colored belts in martial arts. A different color for greater levels of skill.

That’s what we should be striving for with change. So, next time you’re discouraged, touch your glasses if you wear them and look at someone else’s glasses if you don’t. Hopefully by then it will trigger you to remember that it’s a process and changes have occurred and are accumulating. Remember the song “The Rose”?