Recently, my glasses were knocked off my face, and when I put them back on, I could immediately tell that something was wrong. Somehow they’d bent so that they no longer sat comfortably on my ears and nose.
Luckily, I’d been in this situation before and knew that I could mostly bend glasses back into an acceptable position – one in which there wouldn’t be a lingering feeling of wrongness. Reaching up, I started to bend the arms, trying to achieve a comfortable fit. A few adjustments later, and they were… still feeling off. No matter what I tried, they just weren’t sitting right.
After a few minutes of fiddling, I gave up. For the next couple of hours I put up with the niggling feeling, an annoyance just enough to dampen my mood, but at least a manageable one. And I should be able to take the misbehaving glasses to the opticians in the morning – this knowledge helping me to cope for a short while.
Then it was time for bed. I took my glasses off, folded the arms – and immediately saw what the problem was. A quick bend and I could pop my glasses straight back on, feeling as comfortable as they always had.
I don’t think I’ve ever had such a clear demonstration of the power of looking at a problem differently.
Have you ever had a real life experience that really made concrete a piece of advice or a suggestion that you’d been given? Share it in the comment section!
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PS I was struggling to find time and inclination to write anything, so I took another piece of advice and decided just to try to start writing, without worrying about necessarily ending up with something I was happy with, or wanted to share. I took a look at my list of planned topics, then rattled off the entire first draft of this blog post, making it in itself a concrete example of the worth of another common piece of advice.
It’s turtles all the way down!
1 Comment
Rachel Wheeley · October 7, 2024 at 12:25 pm
Very interesting piece, Mike! I was just thinking this weekend about the phrase, ‘feel the fear, and do it anyway’. I had heard of this when I was a young person, however recently I have ‘discovered’ it for myself, and then realised that this aphorism exists, and I have known it for several decades without working it out myself. Many activities have to be undertaken alongside the accompanying feeling that the thing is painful, scary, awkward, anxiety-inducing, etc… it’s almost like we enter into a pact with our body and agree that yes, we’re scared, BUT WE’RE DOING IT ANYWAY.