My Experiment

My flight to Egypt last December was occupied by Sudoku, sleeping, and reading everything that was in the magazines on the plane. I actually really like plane magazines; you can learn so many interesting, random things.

I read an article on this flight about eyesight. They said that the body is self-healing and when most things go wrong, they correct themselves: like broken bones. However, they argued that many people get glasses all too soon and don't give their eyes a chance to normalize. If one were to go a certain amount of time without glasses, the eyes would naturally correct themselves.

So, I decided I would conduct an experiment myself to see if these people really knew what they were talking about. Since coming to South Asia, I have not been able to wear my contacts due to the dirt, pollution, and climate difference. Therefore, ditching the contacts was already taken care of . I decided to go one month without wearing my glasses to see if there was any change in my eyes.

The first few weeks were rather hard, cause I wanted to see things, obviously! I'm not blind without my glasses, but things are not clear, such as words from afar and whether people are looking at me or not. But, after a month, I became used to it.

Month 2: I decided to keep it up, since it wasn't bothering me all that much anymore. I wanted to see if there was more change over a longer period of time.

Month 3: I forgot to stop the experiment and just got used to not having glasses.

I am now beginning month 4 and have decided to examine my observations about this experiment and thought I might share.

1. I am an observant person. I usually notice everything on the streets as I am passing by, things that both of my partners have told me they never noticed or even thought about. However, now without my glasses, I wasn't noticing much around me. I found myself walking down the street, and instead of being consumed by all the sights and details of things, I was consumed by my own thoughts. Odd. I realized that I don't usually walk anywhere in deep thought, I'm too busy noticing and taking in new things to dwell on something that is not currently present. I began to enjoy my own thoughts and found myself doing a lot more praying for the people around me and meditating on the Scriptures I'd read that morning or other places that my mind wandered. I'm not saying my observing mind is bad; definitely not. Only that I never noticed what thoughts consumed my mind until they weren't there anymore and something else occupied them.
   
2. Going 3 months without glasses does not improve your eye sight. I would probably have to have an eye exam to really conclude for certain that there was no improvement whatsoever in my eyes, but, as things look now, it seems just as blurry as before.