Squinting- stop suffering needlessly

The other day as I drove home from volunteering at my son’s school, the sun was shining in just the right spot to blind  me.  It wasn’t glaring through the wind shield.  It wasn’t quite shining through the side window.  Instead, it was glinting somewhere in between and right into my eyes.

As I drove along, alone with my thoughts for a rare few minutes, I squinted against the brightness.  After some time, it dawned on me that there is a lovely invention called a visor.  Reaching up, I flicked the visor down into place.  As soon as the shade hit my eyes, I uttered an involuntary, audible sigh of relief.

Even though I realized that the sun had been shining in my eyes, I was a little taken back that the relief was so great that I actually sighed over it.  It made me think of other things that I squint over.  Not that I have that many blinding lights in my life, but you know what I mean.  What things are causing me stress, anxiety, or maybe even pain that I just don’t realize are needing my attention?  What am I too busy to notice that is causing me unneccessary discomfort?

When I was a teenager, my sister just younger than me was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.  She actually almost collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital before she was diagnosed.  After we knew what was wrong and she was figuring out how to deal with her new reality, I asked her how she was feeling.  She expressed that she was in fact relieved.  Even though she would be taking insulin injections for the rest of her life, she was glad to know what was wrong.  You see, she had known for a while that there was something going on with her body.  As most people do, she silently pondered all the things that *could* be wrong with her and suffered with those worries for some time.  Knowing what she was facing, though daunting, was manageable.

I think in the busy day to day that we all face, we often ignore things that are not emergencies.  We put others ahead of ourselves.  We wait until we are in a state of near collapse before we flip that visor, make that doctor appointment, have that uncomfortable talk with our spouse or friend.  There are endless things that we put off doing that could make our lives more comfortable with simple actions.  Notice that I said simple.  Not necessarily easy.

Sometimes the simple actions we need to take, take courage to actually do.  Making that doctor appointment when we suspect something may be wrong can be hard.  Perhaps we think that not knowing is easier.  It isn’t .  Because when you have an issue that needs attention, even if you push the thought of it away, it has a way of bothering you at some level or some time in the future.

I recently asked for forgiveness for an offense that was more than twenty years in the past.  This was not a problem that I thought of every day or even that often.  However, for more than twenty years, EVERY time I thought about it, it made me uncomfortable.  The deciding to finally do something about it was hard.  I tried to justify that it was so long ago it didn’t matter.  I felt foolish and embarrassed.  Finally, I decided that I was just going to do it. And I did. And when I was done, I sighed in relief.

Have you ever ignored something that you needed to take care of until it was almost too late?

Is there something that you are squinting against now that a simple (not easy) action could help resolve?

How have you found the strength to take on these types of challenges and overcome the fear of what may come?