Gaining Vision Upon Losing My Sight

I am just 33 as of this writing, and for heaven’s sake, to say that I’ve been through a lot is an understatement. I unexpectedly lost my sight. I’ve faced death eye-to-eye not just once, twice but thrice. I failed in my career, stood up and redeemed myself in the midst of that failure. I rebuilt myself, I fell in love and learned to see the world in a different light. Not all people my age have worn this shoe. But despite the hardships, I see it as a privilege, a blessing and never a curse nor a punishment.

In all that transpired, this quote from Eckhart Tolle is what resonates most: “Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”.

I’m wealthy with insights and realizations. Some in health, finance, relationships and in life in general. If there’s one that truly stood out was the concept of “surrender. The one that is not just about defeat, but one that is more of “trust”, trusting myself, my abilities, and ultimately, trusting God, my loving father and maker above. It’s letting go and watching life unfold as I do my part.

When I became blind, I was at a lost on how to go on with life as a blind person, but I lived life anyway.

From the academe to the corporate world, I felt like a misplaced wanderer. It’s tough, but I braved it anyway.

It’s pretty much the same when I had a major Lupus relapse. We’ve been to the best doctors. Took the best treatments the medical field could offer. when I wasn’t getting better, I tried just one more time. I bravely explored to put together the current standard of care with Functional Medicine. It’s a medical path less traveled, but I walked it anyway.

When I finally recovered, I was healed but jobless. I have no source of income, no idea how to start a new career, but I did it anyway. I plunged into a new career path, one that is still on the rise and its stability is very shaky. I took the chance though I was scared, but I braved to walk it anyway. Good thing I did, for it is now the trend, and it completely changed the course of my career.

Now, I’m once again testing the waters. Fearlessly jumping into the unknown. Hopeful to build my wings while building my business management skills. I bravely wore the entrepreneurial hat. I’m scared, but I’m thrilled, happy and so I jumped in anyway.

Life will bring us with all sorts of situations that most of the time, we are left clueless on how to move forward. We will have dreams and goals that would appear as impossible to reach. But quoting the writer Anthony Moore, “you can have whatever you want if you do whatever it takes”. And that’s what my stubborn self-did. I fought the odds and expanded my reach and true enough, the pieces of the puzzle, one-by-one, they slowly began to fit. Don’t get me wrong though, the journey is not a walk in the park. It’s a roller coaster of ups and downs, of highs and lows and as what Paulo Coelho said, “if you fall 7 times, get up 8 times” and that indeed is the secret to life’s success.

All these experiences not only changed my life, but it completely changed the way I perceived life. I will always be a work in progress, but I discovered and truly understood some of the most vital life principles which I am now starting to live by and to apply in my life.

For one, I’ve always known that the only thing in life that is constant is change. It was my experiences that made it real and drilled into me that everything in life is indeed temporary. All the good and all the bad, they’re not permanent. The good time will pass, so as with the bad. So, learn to live life one day at a time. Savor and learn from each moment.

This is what I hold on to especially when times are rough. When we are overwhelmed with problems, and when we reach rock bottom, it feels like the end. What we don’t realize is if we are in the bottom most part, there is definitely no other way, but up. Now, the choice is ours. To stay at the bottom or to slowly crawl back up. And in choosing to get up, our capability to choose is what makes everything temporary. As the old famous adage goes, whenever it’s hard, remember that “this too shall pass”.

Next one is to control what you can and let go what you can’t. Surely, this is a struggle most of us are guilty of. As human beings, it’s our nature to always want control, and I personally think that’s ok. the problem is on how we react once we lose control.

It’s inevitable to be placed in a situation where we feel like we’re losing grip. It may be a huge life changing event or down to the pettiest of things. In my case, a perfect example is losing my sight and on how people perceive my blindness. Both situations are out of my hands.

Becoming blind is not my choice. If I have it my way, I wanted to get my sight back. I cried, got mad and everything in between, but at the end of it, it’s something that I can’t control. It didn’t just end there. By the time that I have fully accepted my condition, the next hurdle is on how people perceive my blindness. I get pity, false kindness, rejections, and all sorts of unpleasantries. At first it really gets into me, but in the end, I learned that knowing who I am, loving myself for that and the people who genuinely loves me, like my family, that’s all that matters. Slowly, I learned to bump off other people’s opinions, for I’ve accepted that it’s beyond my control.

Third equally important principle is the importance of learning how to eliminate the so-called “limiting beliefs”. These are thoughts that boxes us into believing that we can’t do or achieve something because of our weaknesses. It’s our tendency of saying, “I can’t do this because…”

In my case, I had few moments especially in my younger years when I used to say, “I can’t do this because I’m blind”. fortunately, as each year passed and I’ve matured, I learned to change this mindset and trained myself to say, “I can’t do this because I’m blind, but there’s definitely a workaround”.

Adding that extra phrase made tons of difference on how I lived my life. Yes, I always acknowledge my limitations as a blind person, but I don’t stop there. I’ve always believed that if I can’t do one thing because of the absence of my sight, there’s definitely a hundred different ways of producing the same result. For as long as I’ll be patient, resourceful and creative.

One very basic example is on how I make my coffee. Before, I solely rely from the labels. When I became blind, I maximized my sense of smell and sniff each container to identify which is the coffee, the creamer, and the sugar. And in pouring the hot water, I am able to identify if the cup is almost full by relying on my sense of hearing.

At school, in subjects that are highly visual, flowcharting for example. Since I can’t see the shapes, I maximized my sense of touch. I had cut outs of all these different flowchart shapes and symbols, and these are what I used during class discussions.

And at work, in my job as a database developer and administrator. The default tool that my teammates are using is not compatible with my screen reading software. What I did is I used a different tool, a more primitive one, but has the same function. The process is different, but I was able to produce the same outputs.

These and so much more. I had countless experiences wherein I was forced to look for workarounds. I never settled on the fact that I can’t do thing simply because I’m blind. I think this attitude trained my brain to truly believe and put this into practice – “if there’s a will, there’s a way”. And because of this, I developed persistence, determination and these traits helped me to reach the heights that I’ve attained in my life despite being blind.

One more essential principle, and probably the most important is to live and breathe with gratitude. Always practice an attitude of gratitude. Learn to be grateful to anything and everything in your life. Be it good or bad, thank them all the same. The good times are the blessings, the bad are the blessings in disguise.

My blindness is the living proof. If I only look at the fact that I became blind, it indeed looks so tragic and, in some ways, it is. However, I also can’t deny that it is through my blindness that my life has changed for the better. It made me a better person and it became the key for the opening of bigger and brighter horizons. Heartbreaking as it may seem, I’m beyond grateful that I lost my sight, for it is through this loss that I have gained some of the most precious lessons life could offer.