Break on through to the other side..

Have you ever noticed that while you’re in the car you can be looking at the road through the windshield…and with a small, almost indiscernible adjustment of your eyes…you can look at the windshield?  I actually tried to figure out what I was doing in order to make that adjustment to my vision.  I tried to explain HOW you would do this…but I can’t.  It’s just one of those things you can do.  You just…refocus.

I’ve found this to be a very useful allegory of the way I look at things in general.  Sometimes I find myself glossing over the problem and just looking through it to what’s on the other side instead of really focusing on the problem at hand.  When you’re driving, it’s good to look through the windshield.  When you have a problem…it’s not so good.

So, just as I learned how to refocus in order to look at the windshield instead of through it, I have to learn to readjust my focus when dealing with life’s problems.  It’s a bigger adjustment – but just as hard to explain.

I have to readjust the way I’m looking at the issue.  I have to change my focus and actually look at the problem instead of everything I see THROUGH the problem or on the other side of it…or even in the side mirrors.  I have to make myself actually look at the issue and deal with it…then it’s easier to move on and deal with whatever fall-out remains.

It’s hard to do this, because honestly…it’s just easier to look through it and not have to face it.  It’s hard for me to shut off my brain and stop thinking about the “what if’s” and the other things that surround the primary issue.  It’s also just your basic avoidance so you don’t have to deal with the hard stuff.

But just like a big dollop of bird poop right in the middle of the driver’s side of the windshield…sometimes the problem is so RIGHT THERE...that you can’t NOT see it.  So you just ignore it.  Again, good for driving…bad for problems.

Change your focus.  What’s really bothering me?  What’s really the problem?  What is that on the windshield and how far to the next gas station so I can clean it off with a squeegee and get it out of my line of vision?  You have to clean off the bird poop and readjust your focus.  Look at the real issue and solve it…then move on.

Now if they just made a squeegee for your brain.