Mid-April 2025 Newsletter

Hello, and a more-than-usually agreeable Mid-April to you!
Welcome, or welcome back, to my newsletter. Today's issue is about starting small. Enjoy!

We've all heard "the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step". We might be tempted to retort that we don't want to travel 1000 miles, we just want to overcome our current problem, or accomplish that goal in front of us, over-focused on our immediate struggle. Yet we can get so overwhelmed at the size of our challenge, we have no idea how to even get started, and end up doing nothing at all to move us forward.

The child learning to walk is not thinking about competing in a long-distance race, or certainly not about taking a journey of 1000 miles. His attention is only on his next step. "Inch by inch, it's a cinch", in other words, start small, but do start. How does this apply to vision improvement? Having the end goal in mind is good, to motivate us and pull us forward, yes, but too much focus on the finish line can frustrate us since we're not there yet.

When I first visited my holistic optometrist and discovered it was theoretically possible to improve my then -10 myopia, I'm ashamed to say I said I'd be the patient who would improve the fastest. Almost 25 years later, my vision is much better and I don't wear glasses, but it's not stable at 20/20 just yet, so I'm eating those words. I was what Aldous Huxley calls in his classic book "The Art Of Seeing" a greedy end-gainer, desperately wanting the result of success without enjoying the journey to get me there.

A big part of the satisfaction from the journey toward a goal is savoring the intermediate steps, appreciating that we've reached a higher rung on the ladder, so to speak. When I softened my intense focus on "getting there" (achieving what I considered perfect eyesight), I was able to be happy about driving in rain or fog without getting nervous, or enjoying going for a walk in my neighborhood after dark without glasses. Referring back to the picture at the start: baby steps are better than no steps!

When we're younger, many of us are in a rush to grow up. The day after a child's 4th birthday, she'll claim that she's now four and a half! Then as we grow and go around the seasons a few more times, we can start to "drag our feet to slow those circles down" as Joni Mitchell sang. We tell the youngsters to enjoy the freedom of childhood, or students cramming for exams that university may be the happiest time of their lives, wishing we ourselves had savored these periods more when we were there, instead of rushing through them.

Each of us is at various stages of ability and expertise in different areas. Someone may be just starting to develop a skill you've been good at for years, whether it be a sport or a musical instrument or some kind of personal development. So the same accomplishment which is no big deal to you could be a huge victory for them. If you can do something with weaker or no glasses for the first time, that's wonderful. Please don't be discouraged because you can't see the moons of Jupiter, or read microscopic print, quite yet. Appreciate whatever rung you're on right now, while still being eager for the next higher one, which you'll reach in your own perfect time.

For an article on staying here in the present to see well, rather than focusing too much on a future goal, click here.

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Please send me your questions and comments
Let me know what you've wondered about concerning energy medicine or vision or dreams. I'll be glad to write a short article addressing that topic. Thank you to those who have sent me questions, or see a question you asked me in a private session written about here. You're helping many other people! Enjoy the remainder of this alluring month of April. I'll write again in a few weeks. Take care!