Our eyes are a gift and yet we don’t seem to treat them like one. Maybe we’re just so used to having them that they don’t come to our attention very often. It’s like a watch, you see. Imagine yourself putting one on. For some time, you’re conscious about the existence of the watch. You can feel it touching your skin; you feel it gripping your wrist. But after some time, you seem to forget everything about it. And I do mean totally. You’d suddenly wash your hands with gushing water and be like “Oh my! My watch is getting wet!” I think it’s kind of the same phenomenon. The longer we are exposed to things – be it an object, a situation, or a person – the less conscious we become of it. Since we’ve had our eyes since birth and we literally can’t see them all the time (unless we’re looking at a mirror and who does that all day right?), then maybe we have forgotten that they have always been there in the first place. Our vision has become so natural and inculcated into our being that we fail to recognize their individual health.

Well, that is up until we lose it.

Close your eyes for a second. Shut it real tight. On second thought, switch off the light in the room before you do; make sure it’s pitch dark. Then, shut your eyes. What do you see? Look real hard and tell me what you see. You see nothing, right? A flight of your imagination may be but in the end, you see nothing. There’s no light, no color, no figures and shadows. It’s an endless abyss of nothingness.

That is what it’s like to lose your vision (read this). That is what it’s like for people who have lost or have not been blessed with vision. You know, you and me, we’re lucky to have fully-functional eyes. I cannot imagine life without a good pair. I can’t imagine living in the dark, never-knowing what’s up ahead and what’s behind. Not knowing the faces of the people you love most or never knowing how they turn out growing up. A life without vision is quite terrifying. And while society does whatever it can to help out those who have already lost it, try to get them to do normal things again, it is still best to take care of what we have while we still have it. It’s called being grateful and appreciative of these natural gifts that we are so lucky to have.

Without vision, you can still meet many new friends. But you will never know their faces. Without vision, you can still hear yourself sing but you’ll never see the crowd that’s applauding. Without vision, you can still read through braille but you’ll never be able to see motion. The world is too beautiful to not see. And not everyone gets the chance to see it. Those who do, tend to abuse it. I know I did. And the next thing I did was find eyeglasses near me. Imagine that.

We stay up late doing completely unnecessary things. We watch TV, play video games, surf the internet, browse YouTube, and whatever else we can think of that can sadistically hurt our eye health.

My advice? If it’s not necessary, put it off for tomorrow. If it’s not something you absolutely have to do, then maybe don’t do it. Playing with gadgets, dilly-dallying, and marathoning Netflix is something that we all want to do to relieve stress and have fun. But let’s try to discipline ourselves and work on reaching a compromise – a way to have fun without risking our eyes’ health. Instead of watching at night, watch during the day when there is natural light coming through your window. Watch on the weekends; don’t stay up too late. Visit an eye doctor, at least once a year. These small changes may not seem much but they will help get your eyes their much needed rest. Sleep is a very important activity our body needs because it is when our cells regenerate. Our eyes need that too. They work for us every moment of our lives, the least we can do is take better care of them.

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