Recently, I finished my ophthalmology rotations, and I must say it was such a vivifying experience… There was so much to learn, you know! You all know how intricate those small eyes of yours are… However, I learnt a rather important lesson different from the usual academic stuff, though inspired by something with a tinge of academics to it…. Without any much ado, let’s get down to business…

In my 6 weeks rotation in ophthalmology, I gathered that ophthalmologists generally believe we all were born hypermetropic; then the majority attain ametropia as we grow older, and many go on to develop myopia!!!

I find this an interesting thought, as I feel it has a significant bearing to our lives as individuals…

To start with, hypermetropia is an ocular refractive error in which the affected person is able to visualize distant objects comfortably but has difficulty with visualizing close objects… While on the other hand, myopia means one can see close objects comfortably but has difficulties with seeing distant objects… from an ophthalmologist point of view, I won’t say one is better than the other… a middle course being ametropia… though all are equally refractive errors and equally bad.

However, let’s take a lesson from ophthalmology and apply to our lives… It’s common knowledge that we use the word myopic outside the field of medicine, and we often do to refer to someone that fails to see ‘a big picture’ of events or one who refuses to see ahead… Taking a cue from this, and our basic understanding from my ophthalmology rotation, I safely assume that we all were born with an in-built ability to see ahead… We were naturally born progressives, able to look ahead and see the big picture… born with an innate positivity mindedness. In short, we are natural optimists and within us is that daring spirit that’s always longing to get better and do things better… We were innately designed to be the best, to think outside the box, to provide solutions to every challenge that may arise or confront us along the way…
In fact, it’s common knowledge that children are far more daring and daunting than adults: very innovative and always exploring their world… Also, children are much more very believing, very hopeful and positive; very creative and super innovators. How sweet it is to be a child…. Oh, what a beautiful package we are at inception!!!

However sadly, growth happened to us! Not like that is a bad thing in itself, but you can’t imagine how much we have lost just by growing up… Simply put, life besides all things teaches us to be more careful… you know, our parents and the environment start by curtailing our excesses, and in essence killing our creativity! They set rules for us, we become bound by the whims of others… limited to the expectation and approval of society… We simply get restrained to what is considered normal, and the majority remains stuck in this average living… A life of utter satisfaction with the norm and the comfortable; losing any zeal to hope and yearn for more… Just like ophthalmologists believe, here’s where the majority of people are stuck… Normal… Ametropia… The so called average!!! But you ask me, what’s wrong with normal???
Then we have the last group of people… The myopic! Like ocular myopia, they can only see what is at hand… ‘Short sighted’ is the word! I consider it an over adaptation to the so called normal, such that we hardly expect any better from anything… gradually condescending into a state of hopelessness, of negativity and all the likes… And do I blame them? No… Life just happened to them. So who do we blame for this view to life that such people have inadvertently adopted? Guess I am left with no choice than to make them take responsibility for their own response to life…

As I conclude, the morale is simply thus: we all have the innate ability to be better than we are; we are all born as progressives…. This may be the best time to revert to that awesome feature that is a core of our very existence from inception. Be a child again: be creative; be positive!!!!