Choices In our Field of Vision
We always have choices in life. We just often don't notice them.  It's a lot like driving in your car but only paying attention to  the roads you know, the ones you travel on habitually. All the rest become a blur. We're just not paying attention.

I realized this the time I had to go to a store on a street I'm not familiar with. It was in an area I do frequent though. I asked my husband for directions, because the man knows every street in a 50-mile radius. At least that's how it seems to me. He's like a walking navigation system. He told me the exit to take, one I'm very familiar with. "Then when you get to the light at Cornell, go straight instead of turning right," he said matter-of-factly.  

I imagined the road in my mind, following it off the freeway to the stoplight.  I frowned. "But you can't go straight there. It dead-ends. You can only go right or left," I replied with complete confidence.

He stared back at me as though I had lost my mind. "You're kidding, right? The road goes straight ahead. Immediately ahead. It's a wide two-lane street." He gestured broadly with his hands."You can't miss it."

I thought again. I could not picture anything but the road ending in a T shape, with no possibility of going straight. I'd been on the road to that intersection a hundred times. "No you can't." I lobbed back.

This went on for several minutes. "You've been ON that road. You took Sierra there to a gym camp when she was little," he said with exasperation.

I remembered the gym. I didn't remember how I got there.  I was sure he was mistaken. But I do realize my husband has a better sense of direction than I do, so I finally said, "I can't picture this.  I'll do what you say, but I'm going to call you on the phone and have you talk me through it." 

He sighed.  "Okay. Call me." 

Driving with Blinders On
The next day I took the described exit. I called him on my cell phone. He answered, prepared to assist me in my route-finding challenge.  I approached the stoplight. And then my mouth dropped open.

"Do you see it now?" my husband asked gently.

There, right in front of me, just as he'd described it, was the road.  Or rather the extension of the road on which I was already driving. It was a beautiful road; a wide suburban street, nicely paved.  It included turning lanes and landscaping!  How on earth had I never noticed this? Then I did remember that I had taken it once ten years or so ago to the gym camp. Then I apparently blocked it out of my mind.

Choose to See More
This was such a powerful metaphor for how we live life. I'd never noticed the road right in front of me because I was so trained to go the other direction. The habit of turning the other way was so ingrained that I completely blocked any other option from my vision. Yet it was right in front of me the whole time.  All I had to do was shift my vision. Look around. Notice the world around me.

How often do we do this in our lives? Habits are powerful. Our comfort zones seize us. We create the bubbles we live in and rarely look outside of it.

Tomorrow when you wake up, or when you go to bed, ask yourself. "What am I not seeing that's right in front of me?"

(Post a comment! Share your story of either missing something right in front of you...or noticing it. )