the problem with binoculars

You've seen it.  You know exactly what I'm talking about.  

You're sitting down with a friend and you notice that they are not really paying attention to what you're saying.  "mhmm."  they say.  Some how you can't ever get them to listen to you. 

 They're just not there.  It's like they're focused on something completely different than the words coming out of your mouth.

 

Or there's the relationship you're in.  "When we're _____ (fill in the blank), then we'll be happy".  At some point in the future you'll be happy the only problem with that being that you're not happy currently.

Maybe it's your career.  "Ok, well right now I'm working a job I hate but in a couple years I'll get a promotion to a job I hate less".  

"I can't do that!  What if I fail!"  What if....

Everyone has glasses ...even if they have 20/20 vision.  Some people call this a world view.  I call it survival.

Just to get through life we pick up pairs of glasses.  We have bifocals for comparing the past and present and special glasses so that you can examine your current life situation more accurately with precision and wisdom.  You may have even heard of seeing life through rose-colored glasses...same thing.

The only problem with this is that we sometimes forget to take the glasses off and we keep piling them on the end of our nose until we have some sort of weird twisted binoculars teetering back and forth on our faces.  And this isn't just uncomfortable.  It's bad.  Really bad.  

When you're looking through binoculars all the time, you only really see a small portion of the scenery far away.  We begin to make judgements about our current lives based on the narrow perspective of what may or may not be our future.  

Maybe you've met someone like this - who can only think about the future and forgets to live their present.  Musicians have a an acutely difficult time avoiding this.  They want to succeed so much that they forget to enjoy music.  

The problem with binoculars is that you trip a lot more when you wear them.  Glasses are fine... but let's save ourselves from some serious pain and keep it to one pair.