Better than 20/20

Optical and other illusions

I had an eye test for the first time a couple of years ago. They had me read the chart - you know the one, with the largest letters on top and the hieroglyphics on the bottom. I assumed that making it all the way down to and nailing the bottom line was the goal and standard.

I was struggling three lines up, and the lady asked if I could ready *anything at all* below. It felt a lot like reading in low light in a sand storm and the thing you’re reading is your doctor’s handwriting but they wrote it in lipstick and also you only have one eye.

I was STRAINING and eventually just wildly guessing.
“…Z?” I would offer nervously.
“Yes - perfect,” she would respond, as I marvelled at the fluke.

I was a bit embarrassed and nervously wriggling in my seat. I started forming a narrative around the fact that I couldn’t read the bottom line.

“My eyes are so bad for my age. I must spend too much time on my phone. I’ll definitely need glasses. I should have booked in years ago and they know it. They probably don’t even have lenses strong enough for me.”

Turns out 20/20 vision was two lines up from what I could read.
And most people could only get to the line above what I was reading.

My eyes were better than average.
And “Better than 20/20,” - the lady informed me.

Now aside from using this and my positive dentist appointment from the previous week as confirmation I can confidently postpone all appointments for the next 10 years at least…I realised just how much I am comparing myself against a false standard.

I’ve wrongly assumed my whole life that 20/20 was the maximum level of eyesight you could achieve. That nothing was clearer or truer than 20/20. But there is apparently more beyond 20/20…and there’s a chance you’re already there…
20/20 is just what is average, not what is possible.

I think of all the ways this world tells us that the most common reality is the pinnacle. When there is in fact so much more beyond. So many more beautiful things to see. And I think of how the things we’ve been told to aim for, turn out to be meaningless, and how the soulfulness we crave is nestled directly within our struggle.

You might be receiving messages that the pinnacle of feminism lies in the “You do you,” movement. That the best thing you’ve gained is the ability to wear whatever you want, bare whatever you want, and spend as much money as you want on face products and alterations. Sometimes I think we were offered freedom, and we walked straight back into our prison cell and just painted over the sign.

What if feminism had more profound things in store for you? What if we extricated it from consumerism, patriarchy, marketing and pseudo control? What if your walk with feminism could bring you to see the great and far reaching expanse of beauty, freeing you from believing it would be found in a serum, or collagen, or dialling this body part up and that other one down.
What if feminism wasn’t just offering you power, CEO positions and money (though these are great changes), but the creative freedom and authentic expression to redefine and re-story these things with a communal lens and an un-tethered imagination?
What if feminism had so much more in store for you? For the women AND the men.

What if parenting had so much more in store for you?
What if the most beautiful thing wasn’t the way they slept through the night in their own bed at 6 months old, but the way you held them and hummed with them at 2:30am by the soft glow of the bunny nightlight?
What if the most beautiful thing wasn’t whether they could read by age 7, but how much they’re growing to love stories, as evidenced by the 47 follow up questions they desperately need answered?
What if the truest thing wasn’t the way they learnt to regulate their emotions, but the way you realised your family shares a nervous system? And both the empowerment and terror you felt about this?
What if the pain and tension you feel so much of the time, was your own growing pains? Not something to overcome, but evidence of your expansion.
What if all of it was leading you back to your centre somehow?
Even the rage. Even the tears. Even the confusion.
What if your exhaustion and fears can be true, without being failings?

What if marriage doesn’t need to mirror the relationship books and advice? What if beyond the stereotypes, there was your own sacred trajectory taking place? What if the generalised, gender-based advice they give aren’t necessarily portals to success, and perhaps not even relevant or true for you? What if the truth of your path lies in your story and their story? Not the cookie cutter story that sells well.

What if the mental illness that you thought was a character flaw is actually highlighting a culture flaw? What if the world you’re living in is the source of the sickness? What if there was never anything broken about you to begin with? Maybe your emotions are a canary letting you know the air has become toxic.
Maybe your “mental illness” is actually a sign from your body that the environment you’re in isn’t conducive to being well. I think your mental health is a sacred remembering that things can and must be different. That your current discomfort is a remarkable sign that you are synced with the Wild Divine. Perhaps what you’re experiencing isn’t a personal failure, but evidence that you are authentically in touch with the depths of your humanity.

Perhaps you’re trying to manifest that abundance. Hustling to pass that elusive line of success. But maybe the success never belonged with material accumulation. But in the way you held your gentleness with your family amidst the struggle. The way you embraced your own ingenuity to sort the problems you couldn’t afford to get fixed. The way you met yourself in your panic with encouragement and hope. The way you let your fears turn to tears when they needed to. Maybe success is every moment you continued to believe in your value - the way you disentangled it from your finances. Maybe success is every moment you kept going even when that belief faltered. Maybe success lay in the way you gave up, knowing now just wasn’t the time for this dream and that things can always change. Maybe success looks different for all of us.
Maybe the most beautiful thing isn’t the peace that abundance brings, but the peace that persists regardless.

You might think that 20/20 is where you are meant to be, but there is so much beyond.
More beyond the rungs on an imaginary ladder.
More beyond our ideas of success and failure.
More beyond our limited ideas of freedom.

Maybe the truest moments in life are nothing like what we thought they would be.
They’re messier, and they exist outside our schedules and expectations.
Sometimes they’re grittier and more painful than we would have wanted.
Sometimes they’re bolder and brighter, and often more fabulous than we hoped.

We’re not always seeing what we think we’re seeing, and this is GOOD news.
There are incredible worlds just beyond our perceived realities.

May your vision be rich with wild flukes and surprisingly exceptional truths.
May your own compass become clearer, the more challenges you encounter.
And may your imagination take you far beyond the realms of our optical and other illusions.

Much love,
Lysette