Don't it make your brown eyes blue?

I was a member of a selection committee for a faculty award at Wheelock last year. Each faculty member nominated had to submit two student letters of recommendation and one peer recommendation, as well as write an essay on teaching. One of the essays we read (the winner, I believe) talked about how teaching has allowed her to see the world with "new eyes." Not only has she had to adjust her perspective on teaching in order to reach students with widely varying learning styles, but she's also seen the world through her students' eyes and gotten new perspectives from them as well. She took yet another look at things familiar to her, but tried to see them in a different way. I have to admit that when I read the essay, I thought it a bit trite - "Yeah, new eyes," I thought, "doesn't everyone get a new way of looking at things each day?" The truth is this: yes, probably everyone has the opportunity to see the world from a different angle every day, but many of us ignore it, or just turn down the opportunity in favor of the easy road: maintaining the status quo and not challenging yourself. I do it all the time. This teacher was thankful for her 'new eyes' every day, and took situations that could otherwise be considered losses and looked at them in a new perspective in order to find a way to gain from them. It's a simple lesson we've all heard a million times: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But this professor actually lived that philosophy on a daily basis.

Since that experience on the awards committee, the 'new eyes' metaphor has stuck with me. I had the priceless opportunity to visit Japan for a week last summer, and I was given a whole new way of looking at the familiar by going there. Granted, the easy way to think about a trip like that is to point out the differences...but I was struck by the similarities I found as well. It made me smile to see Nissans, Hondas, and Toyotas all over the road (even though most of them are shaped differently). Sitting on a train where I was the only gaigene (foreigner), I was able to really pay attention to people's facial expressions and hand gestures as they spoke, since I wasn't distracted by their words. There are some things that are universal: rolling your eyes, throwing up your hands as you laugh...and while we're all different colors and religions and nationalities, if you take time to really observe, we really are all just one big human race.

Last week after talking to my doctor, I thought about the new eyes I got around this time a year ago. Those eyes were painful to earn - I endured a pretty life-shattering breakup, only to learn in the end that love is all around you, it's just that sometimes you have to look with a different filter to see it. I spent weeks feeling miserable and alone because I thought I had lost love in my life, only to finally figure out that what had kept me safe that whole time was the blanket of love my friends and family had wrapped around me. And as I spent time babysitting for the twins I babysat for during that time (who were just over a year old then), I marveled at the unconditional love they offered me every day as I walked in the door. Their giggles and their hugs made the rest of my world seem so far away, like magic. It's a powerful thing, love. But sometimes you have to find a new way of seeing things to realize it's never farther than the hand you reach out to grab for it.

Finally, I found myself thinking about new eyes again yesterday as I sat in the opthamalogist's office. Did you know that green eyes are the most sensitive to light, followed by blue, and then brown? The darker your eyes are pigmented, the less sensitive they are to light. This means that I could walk outside on a day like yesterday in Boston: snowy and gray, and find it dark and drab; while the man next to me with green eyes might find it a bit brighter. Same scene, different eyes. That kind of stuff fascinates me.

It's not easy to try to find a pair of new eyes every day, and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I do it all the time. But I decided this morning that I'm going to try really hard to at least take advantage of the opportunities offered me to see things in a different light. I've found in the past few weeks at my internship that patients and parents alike have given me new perspectives on my job, and how to present ideas to different people...and I'm greatful that I have to keep a journal each day because it offers me the time to reflect and realize the things I've learned that day...something I might not consciously do otherwise.

This morning I was offered some new eyes, and I took the lesson given to me. I woke up early to exercise like the dutiful patient I am, only to get across my apartment complex and find that the fitness center was closed today. Rather than be irritated at having gotten up early for nothing, I returned to my apartment determined to catch up on email (I'm seriously behind). Unfortunately, my internet was not working for some strange reason. I then decided to work on my resume, as I'm sending out copies (hopefully) by the end of the week. However, I couldn't get my mind to work that early in the morning, and was unable to cleverly describe my current internship in a way that would make anyone looking at my resume want to hire me. So I gave up and decided I could catch up on what's been going on in the world by watching the news (I took a little hiatus from the world this weekend, it was fantastic, I highly recommend such an activity to everyone). Guess what? Cable was out. This day was really starting to be one of those days that you feel you should just call into work, because everything was going wrong, and it didn't seem to be getting any better. At that point of desperation, I decided the best way to get new eyes was to simply close them for a while and go back to sleep, even if only for a few minutes, and when I awoke again it would be an entirely new start to the day. And you know what? From the moment I got up the second time, things went completely smoothly today.

And so, after all this philosophy, what's the moral of the story? It's always a good idea to go back to bed and sleep some more. =)