It is said that the answer is often right in front of you. More often than not you have to close your eyes and look inside to see it.
You’re already running late. Keys in hand, backpack over your shoulder, and the sun is blazing. Where are your sunglasses? You check the counter. The car. The pocket of yesterday’s jacket. Nothing. Then you catch your reflection in the hallway mirror. They’re right on top of your head. Funny how our eyes work. They were made for looking out. They take in everything around us … except the one who is looking. And so we live looking forward, toward what’s next. Looking around, at what others have. Even looking back, at what might have been. A compass gives us every direction. Yet not one points in.
And that is so often where the answer has been waiting. Twenty years ago, after my first retinal surgery, I spent three weeks in the dark. I didn’t choose it. I was gifted it. What I learned there has stayed with me ever since. When you have to close your eyes for several days in a row, it’s amazing what you will see. Most of us will never be asked to close our eyes that long. We rarely choose to close them at all. There’s too much to watch. Too much to navigate. And still, the answer we keep searching for out there is closer than we think. Right in front of us. Right on top of us. Perhaps … waiting within.
For further reflection
What answer have I been searching for out there … that might already be waiting in here?