As we move through the holiday season, many of us look back to the events of the year and reflect on our goals and plans to change for the New Year. It’s a time we look to start anew — diets, exercise, budgeting, new jobs or new careers. It’s a time to change and, hopefully, improve the path and decisions of our life journey.
For me, my goal for 2017 is to change my lens. For 2017, I want to make some changes in the way I look at and see the world.
My vision is pretty bad. I need correction to see both far away and to read things that are close to me. When I wear my glasses (which, I should point out are bi-focals) I am able to see pretty well. With my contacts (also bi-focal if you can believe it), I also see well although admittedly a little different than when I wear my glasses.
My plan for 2017 goes beyond my annual appointment to have Dr. Cymbor check my vision and to make any corrections in my prescription. I plan to run a check on my internal vision and how I react to that which I see and experience externally.
Humans have an uncanny ability to see a situation through their life experiences, their personal history and where they are in terms of health, happiness, relationships and a general perspective on how the world works. Two of us can see the same situation and experience it very differently. We mentally take the picture and then react. Our personal perspective can limit and distort what comes into our range of vision. Often times, the situation is clouded with the emotions and messages that repeatedly run through our head.
For 2017, my goal is try to see the world more clearly.
First I want to manage my stress. How our bodies react to the pile on our desk, the to-do list, a meeting or an interaction with a friend or colleague and the appointments on our schedule is generally determined by whether we attribute those tasks as positive or negative. Our stress reaction is largely the same physiologically. It is our emotional reaction and that attribution of whether the incident or interaction is “good” or “bad” that has the greatest impact on us.
Recent studies have shown that people who tend to whine or complain more actually rewire their brains to make negativity the more natural and first reaction. Similarly, people who are happy and positive create a firing pattern in the brain that makes staying happy and positive more of a reflex.
In 2017, I want to be more positive.
Next, I am going to adapt the motto of a yoga teacher who last month shared the theme of “I choose not to be offended.” As we see with stress, our sensitivity reaction has a lot to do with how we interpret the situation. Looking for intent, assigning and assuming what people are thinking or why they are making decisions and then personalizing it takes a lot of energy and are often incorrect. In truth, most people aren’t out to get us or make a point or hide some hidden agenda in their interactions with us. It’s our lens that causes the distortion. We become offended. Ultimately, that distortion creates the stress and rewiring of our brains to negativity.
In 2017, I chose not to be offended. Given the political state of the country, I welcome others who want to join me on this path. Just because we don’t agree doesn’t mean that I don’t like you or that I think you are wrong or stupid. If we all choose not to be offended, we might be better off.
Last, I am going to work on wearing the glasses that allow me to experience empathy. So often as we are going around in our day to day interactions, we forget that the people with whom we work or socialize, our family and friends, and even the strangers that we meet on the street, have their own stories. They have the same joys and burdens, challenges and gifts that we have. Sometimes they have even more. Reminding ourselves that others can be responding through the lens of hurt or sadness or fear or loneliness will help us be less offended.
In 2017, I am going to try to see the world from another’s viewpoint.
I may try to cut back on junk food and I may challenge myself to exercise more. I may fall into the traditional “New Year’s resolution” of trying a new hobby, donating more of my time or saving for a special vacation. Sadly, we know that most of those resolutions fall by the wayside somewhere in early winter and we gradually fall back into our old habits by spring. If we want to really make change, we have to work at it.
In 2017, my goal is to change the way that I see my world and the people and the interactions within my world. Who wants to join me?
