Mid-life Myopia
My contact prescription is -9. Without correction, I can’t tell who is standing in front of me unless they’re about two feet from my face. I’ve worn glasses since elementary school, and my vision has gotten progressively worse every year since. This is not a setup for a metaphor. Okay, it’s partially a setup for a metaphor. But it’s also just true.
In 6th grade I was desperate to play sports, but my glasses were so big they wouldn’t fit inside my helmet. Then somebody handed me a magical piece of rubber, I popped it into my eye, and suddenly I could function like everyone else. I think about that moment a lot lately. One small tool, and the whole world opened up.
I’ve been wrestling with the word myopia for a few weeks now. It’s been the structure for my morning scribbles, and the more I sit with it, the more I notice something about how I operate. I like to know what challenge is in front of me. I love to inspect it closely, feel it in my hands, get a read on what I’m working with. There’s a comfort in having a problem in sight and in control, understanding its properties with the senses I have abundant access to.
That’s a strength. It’s also, quite literally, nearsightedness. Everything within arm’s reach is crisp. Everything ten feet out is a blur.
So here’s the question I keep circling: what if I’m navigating this career transition the exact same way? Months of soul searching, big life questions, and I’ve been examining all of it up close, through my own two very nearsighted eyes. Cautious trust. Not knowing what the solution looks like from afar, because I’ve never been able to see afar.
“I picked these bad boys up from Warby Parker, you peasant”
I’ll be honest about where the search has me right now. I know my strengths and what I bring to a team. I can also point to my shortcomings and poor judgment calls without flinching. But the job search doesn’t traffic in nuance. It just keeps sending the same messages: not good enough, not tenured enough, too tenured, too expensive, too weird of a background. It’s a rut, and I feel it.
What if I could pick up a tool that put all of that in perspective? Like the first time you put on glasses and can suddenly see where you’re driving at night.
I don’t have the prescription figured out yet, but a few things are starting to bring the edges into focus.
Gratitude, for one. The best way I’ve found to fight the rejection and uncertainty of this stretch is with thankfulness. Small things: being able to afford contact lenses, long summer days to hit golf balls and sit with this restless feeling. Big things: a career I’ve loved building, the most supportive wife I could have dreamed up, amazing friends, Dolly the dog (the best dog I’ve ever known), and a very special, energetic, healthy son.
Clarity, too. I stopped drinking in November of last year, and it’s a journey I’m pretty darn proud of. There have been plenty of moments in this transition that would have felt less intense with a beer in hand among friends. But with Hayes starting grade school and the search for the right fit ahead of me, a quick buzz on the golf course stopped making the priority list. I wanted to see this season of life clearly, all of it, even the uncomfortable parts.
I keep coming back to how fortunate we are. For most of human history, eyesight like mine would have meant a very small life. No reading, which is one of my greatest passions. No sports. A world about two feet deep. Instead, I pop in a lens every morning and get the whole horizon back for the price of a subscription.
Maybe that’s the whole lesson of this stretch. The right fit, the next phase, the next team to pour my heart into might be sitting just beyond my current eyesight, blurry only because I haven’t found the right lens yet. So I’ll keep putting myself out there, keep asking for help when I need it, and keep being grateful for the basic tools that quietly change everything.
Onwards and upwards.
P.S. Here’s a case study and game I built a few days back while interviewing for a role. Didn’t get it. Kept the game.
-r֊⎚-⎚b
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