Blinders

The day was perfect. The soft snow highlighted everything beautiful in the Denver, Colorado, area. There was still some colorful fall leaves swaying in the cold, and seeing it all while riding in a lovely horse-drawn carriage was breathtaking!

I always feel bad for the horses because they have to wear blinders. But, I know they are necessary to help the horse focus and stay on course.

The blinders, made of leather flaps, are also used on-farm horses and mules to pull plows or wagons. Limiting the horse’s peripheral vision keeps it from becoming distracted by the surroundings. As a result, the carriage driver has better control.

A medical condition called Glaucoma limits peripheral vision in adults, especially those over age 60. It is characterized by increased pressure within and hardening of the eyeball.

The increased pressure in your eye, called intraocular pressure, can damage your optic nerve, which sends images to your brain. If left untreated, the disease can destroy peripheral vision (a vision around and outside the center of the eye) and eventually result in blindness.

It’s imperative to have regular eye exams that include measurements of your eye pressure so a diagnosis can be made in its early stages and treated appropriately.

Sometimes we need to put on focus blinders to avoid unnecessary distractions. Unfortunately, our visual or borrowed blinders sometimes cause us to miss important things.

When working on a project or a deadline, I use focus blinders to avoid being distracted. It helps me reach my goals, solve problems, and sometimes finish something I have started.

It works well if I remember to take them off when I finish my task. However, occasionally I will forget. Then, the task or problem will become the most significant thing I see, while what’s going on around me will become blurred.

Once, when my children were teenagers, I was so focused on a decision I needed to make and what others may think of my decision that I wasn’t aware of anything else going on around me.

Finally, my daughter, who seems to have been born with words of wisdom spouting out of her mouth, said to me, “Mom, don’t you think God cares enough about us that he will always have a backup plan; if we mess up?”

I felt kind of silly. “But, of course, He does,” I said. My daughter’s words made me realize that I could only do the best I could. Trust can be difficult if you depend only on yourself and do not realize that those around you care.

When I can look beyond my blinders and recognize that I am one person in a world of millions, with one problem in a world of many problems, I become aware that my issues may not be as bad as they seem. The answer may be simple to put things into perspective.

Even so, we must consciously lift our heads from our work, accomplishments, or problems to see that what we are doing is not the only thing going on in the world.

It may help to see ourselves as little rocks skipping across a pond. We are making our unique ripple, but we aren’t going to drain the entire pond with our splash.

My husband and I went to Denver for a conference a few years ago. We took a day and hiked a long distance into the Rocky Mountains. We were so far back that I could hear only the sounds of a running brook and birds calling out to each other. The air was cool and crisp, as the snow was still on the ground.

Suddenly everything I worried about every day seemed so tiny. For a moment, standing there surrounded by enormous snow-capped mountains, it took my breath away to comprehend how much bigger the world is than I imagine it every day.

When I returned to the city, the beautiful horses and carriages were waiting to enchant visitors with their romantic carriage rides. As I looked at the horses, I wondered what direction they would go if someone took their blinders off.