2,555 days in the grey

This weekend marked seven years since I lost my sight. 84 months, 364 weeks, 2,555 days. What happened was an operation to remove a tumour was beset with complications that destroyed my optic nerves and very nearly killed me. I survived but was left legally blind, with no sight from my right eye and only 3 percent from my left, meaning that I see in indistinct shades of grey.

I was in hospital for 6 months and those early days were horrific – disorienting for me and traumatic for my family. Since then, I have occupied those years, months and days recuperating, recovering, re-training and re-considering what my life will look like moving forward.

It occurred to me on the weekend that, somewhere along the way, I learned how to just be a person living my life, seeing what I see and feeling what I feel.

I remember years ago talking to someone who had immigrated to Australia from Japan. At the time, I was studying Japanese and asked her whether she still thought in Japanese and then recalled the English translation, or had begun “thinking” in English. She said that she had translated for years but, at some point, it clicked and the English language came to her without a conscious translation taking place in her head. She had begun thinking more like a native speaker of the English language, and her mental load had eased.

It occurred to me over the weekend that I have finally begun thinking like a native of the world I can see. Early on, I would use what I could see to perform an elaborate move of mental gymnastics to dredge up a memory of what the thing in front of me must be. It was exhausting.

What a difference seven years can make. But just because you can’t do it the same, doesn’t mean you can’t do it!

Whether it is the slow unfolding of acceptance or the recognition that nothing is the same as I remember it – not my own face in the mirror, not my daughters who have grown from 8 and 10 to 15 and 17, not the city I live in or the packaging of the products I use every day – I have begun feeling like I’m just a person again. No complicated mental manoeuvres needed to translate the world to myself, just an attitude of ease and gratitude.

Gratitude because it was a beautiful weekend here in Brisbane. The sky was blue and the red roofs of my neighbour’s houses set off the vibrant green of the trees and the grass. Would I have seen a more intense version of those colours if my optic nerves hadn’t been so badly damaged seven years ago? Probably but it does not serve me to cling to comparing, translating, longing for an experience of the world that was never mine to have.

I am happier and more comfortable in the world than I thought I would ever be again.

So, what is holding you back from saying the same? Is there some version of your life that you are clinging to? Are you talking to yourself about the life you’re living now using unhelpful language from your past?

Stop. What’s done is done and all you can do now is take in the world around you and decide what to set your sights on now.

It’s not easy, but change changes you too. Just because you can’t do it the same doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

3 Reasons why you should practice being a beginner

I am five years old and I have a stutter. It’s not a great start for someone who will one day make speaking an integral part of how they earn a living.

I am a cute kid, with my pigtails and my two front teeth missing after one of my five older siblings has dropped me on my face while running down a hill.

And I’m smart. By the time this photo is taken on my first day of school, I know how to spell “restaurant” because we drive past the Double Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant at least ten times a week.

But I am also the youngest child in a big noisy family so what my parents think is a stutter is actually me inserting a place-marker into the hubbub while I finalise the thought that I have just had. I want everyone to know that there are things I know and opinions I have.

Knowledge is valued highly in my family so, for us kids, having people think that there are things we don’t know is tantamount to having them think we have just failed every subject at school.

Also, being at the bottom of the pecking order in a big family has a tendency to instil a determined “I can do it myself!” attitude in a kid.

Needless to say, an appreciation of the value of beginner’s mind did not come to me until much later in life.

Beginner’s mind is a concept taken from Zen Buddhism to refer to the practice of approaching subjects we think we already know about with a degree of humility and an openness to allow new information to inform, and maybe even change, our ideas and opinions.

It is normal to act on the basis of our current understanding of what a situation requires of us. It would be ridiculous to think we could take action or make decisions without doing exactly that.

But it is particularly important in times of change and transition to be open to the idea that:

1. You can learn like a beginner when it comes to the skills to operate in this new environment;

2. You can think like a beginner when it comes to the ways of thinking about yourself and your place in this strange new world; and

3. You are just beginning to build the literal and figurative muscle to get things done now.

What part of your life could do with the injection of creativity, the increased empathy and the new experiences that adopting a beginner’s mind might bring?

Rigidity ruins resilience - what to do instead

Extending support to people in your network doesn’t have to be hard.

For example, I recently read an article written by McKinsey & Company that, at a few points, included this rare and beautiful message: “We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. If you would like information about this content, we will be happy to work with you. Please email us at…”

McKinsey & Company’s Accessibility Statement

I instantly forgave any minor incompatibilities between their content and the screen reader technology I was relying on to read it. A simple expression of the company’s preparedness to change their standard operating procedures to enable everyone to understand what they were trying to say is so valuable.

It is far easier to endure a digital landscape that often feels like it is purposely designed to exclude you when you come across expressions of support like this once in a while. Imagine how much better it would be if this kind of consideration could be taken for granted everywhere you went, in the real world and the virtual one. 

And it’s not only people with disability who need extra consideration sometimes. “Would you like somewhere quiet to sit, sir?” “Can I get you a glass of water, ma’am?” “Shall I read it to you?”

On one of my first weekends away from the brain injury rehabilitation unit that had been my home for months, I went with my family to mass at a Catholic church we didn’t attend often. I was using a wheelie-walker and, having arrived late, we were seated in the front row. When it came time for people to file forward for communion, the priest approached me where I sat to offer the eucharist while everyone else waited. Bless him.

You see, rigidity ruins resiliency. Yours and other’s. Loosen your grip on standard operating procedures and tighten connections with the real people around you.

The Business Lesson in Pinterest’s Prediction of My Vision Loss

Moving house tends to unearth belongings you forgot you ever had. Sometimes, it’s a cringy outfit or an old photo that reminds you who you used to be. 

For me, a recent move unearthed an artwork I made before I lost my sight that eerily presaged what my life has since become.

We Belong Together 2014

It depicts me with my husband and two daughters, portrayed in a style that I copied from an unknown artist whose work had been posted on Pinterest. Our faces are overlapped so I am pictured with one eye also belonging to my daughter and the other eye also belonging to my husband. On one view, I don’t have any eyes of my own and I am seeing through the eyes of my family members.
 
How rich that symbolism has become since I lost my sight in 2016! My family have been an on-call audio description service for the world, filling in all the rich detail I am no longer able to perceive, and through my eyes they have been given insight into the frustrations and ingenuity of living with a disability.
 
Like the continuous hairline in the picture, the past few years have had their ups and downs and, if it is possible, we have been brought even closer by the adversity that we have seen each other through. Just like the title of the picture says, WE BELONG TOGETHER. Why? Because each of us is stronger and more resilient with the support of the others. All those shared eyes? They also share a vision of adapting to whatever life throws our way. And we know we’ll make it a reality if we keep supporting each other.
 
Organisations seeking to build a cohesive and resilient team would do well to build such a culture. All eyes focused in one direction with teams that empathize and build on each person’s strengths.
 
Could you bear to draw your team in this style?

What interdependencies would be highlighted if you did?

Never mind having each other’s backs. Try looking toward a shared vision through each other’s eyes.