What you set your eyes toward is what you will see.
I have this phrase written on a sticky note and stuck to my desk. It’s a regular reminder to not only keep my eyes on my goals, but to also seize and maintain control of my mental health.
Let me explain.
Keeping my eyes on my goals is an easy enough concept to understand. My primary life goals are simple:
- Love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength
- Treat everyone I meet with love, respect, and honor
- Leave a positive impact on everyone I can
- Be the best husband and father I can be
- Become a full-time novelist and writer
- Live a healthy and joyful life so I can be around for my family for as long as possible (and they actually want to be around me 😉)
- Adopt one or two (or three or more) children so I can provide a good, full life for them
The problem with life goals is that life is filled with all sorts of distractions. Ultimately it is up to me as to whether or not I will allow those distractions to shift my eyesight from what I want. When I’m successful in keeping my eyes focused on my goals, I take consistent steps to go after them. If I allow the distractions to redirect my attention, then I struggle with pursuing them, and sometimes even forget about them.
But the phrase “What you set your eyes toward is what you will see” is a lot more than just pursuing goals. It’s a reminder to myself about how I want to live my life. With me and my personal struggles with mental health, this is paramount!
Several years ago I was given a laughably overdue diagnosis of chronic anxiety. Looking back on it now, it’s ridiculous that it took anyone that long to actually diagnose what was going on with me for nearly my entire life. This wasn’t just a mental diagnosis. There was (and is) an actual chronic chemical imbalance in my brain that, when left untreated, essentially forces my body into a perpetual “fight or flight” state. This imbalance kicked in during my early pre-teen years, and has been with me ever since.
For most of my life, I had no clue what was wrong with me. I always feared the worst. I expected it. I lived constantly with what felt like a fist gripping and squeezing my heart. I didn’t know any better so I just thought everyone lived like this, that they were just better at coping with it than I was.
To be honest, it was a miracle and the pure grace of God that I had my life as put together as I did because the anxiety tainted every decision I ever made for literally decades!
Once I was diagnosed and put on a medical regimen that would help me govern my emotions properly, I had to learn how to think healthily. The woman I affectionately call “Mommy” took me under her wing and spent months teaching me how. It was like learning how to walk again, or taking your first breath of fresh air! Learning how to think without that constant shriek of anxiety reverberating through my skull was the most invigorating, freeing, and terrifying thing I had ever done! I realized the boundaries of my life were so much farther and wider than I had ever imagined!
Despite the medication and mental discipline, though, my old nemesis anxiety was still there waiting for me if I ever unintentionally chose to come back to it. The moment I gave it an inch, it would try to drag me back into cycling thoughts. If I let a thought of fear take root, anxiety would take me for a ride through hell to make sure I could terrify myself with every possible angle of that fear. If I let negativity have a home in my mind, anxiety was there waiting to wrap its icy blanket around me!
I eventually learned that trying to stop those thoughts from happening by rebuking them or telling myself to stop thinking about them was a losing battle. By telling myself not to think about those negative thoughts, I was actively reminding myself of what those thoughts were. Once that happened, the anxiety would get its hooks in.
My wife has a tongue-in-cheek mandate: “The first rule about John’s anxiety is that we don’t talk about John’s anxiety.” It’s her way of saying that if I focus on the anxiety, then that is all I will see.
The way I overcome my anxiety is not by combatting the thoughts that take me down its path of misery. It’s by focusing my eyes and mind on all the immense good in this world and in my life! When I do this, I leave no place for the anxiety to take root. By setting my eyes on all the good things God has for me and the tremendous adventure of life He’s given me, I’m able to live in the freedom He’s always designed for me!
I made thinking like this a way of life where words like love, peace, hope, joy, gratitude, and celebration are pillars not only for me, but also for my family. We’ve worked them into our core values so they would take the place of anxiety in guiding our decisions.
If you struggle with mental health like I do, I encourage you to get the help you need to set your mind up for success. Then look to someone who can teach you the rhythms of healthy thought.
Do I mess up with it sometimes? Yes. Certain times of the year can be especially difficult and mistake-prone when it comes to keeping the eyes of my mind set on good things. But disciplining my mind and having good friends and family available to help guide me back to the correct path invariably draws me back to the life and freedom everyone deserves.
But there is one more facet of truth about this phrase that is crucial to life. Beyond mental health, whatever you focus your attention on is what you will see in life.
Think about it this way: When you get a new car, you start seeing the same make and model of your car everywhere even if you had never noticed it all that often before. When you decide to start a new habit, you suddenly notice others doing the same thing. When you’re in love, you see aspects of your lover everywhere! We humans are obsessive creatures in that way!
The problem is this world is stuffed to overflowing with things for us humans to obsess over. The world is a paradox-filled dichotomy of beauty that will take your breath away and horrific ugliness that can pulverize spirits. There is more good in this world than we can possibly realize, but evil is sitting right there with it, ready to destroy at a whim. And if we truly look hard enough, we can see both the beauty and ugliness, the good and the evil inside of every one of us.
So what, then, do we focus on? What do we set our eyes toward? If we set our eyes toward the ugliness of this world and the people in it, then we will see that ugliness. And if we stare at it long enough, we become addicted to it until the ugliness and evil is all we will ever see in the world and the people in it! Once that happens, we then begin propagating that ugliness and evil, and in the process become the very thing we hate.
If we fix our eyes on the good and beautiful things this world and people have to offer, then we will begin to see them. We start to see hope, joy, and life everywhere, even in the darkest of times. And just like the ugly and evil things can consume us, the good and beautiful things can consume us too! Except instead of becoming the ugliness we hate the most, we become the beauty we love and honor the most!
So my question today is, what are you looking at? What will you decide to set your eyes toward? If you find yourself constantly angry and bitter at all that is going on in the world and in your life, maybe it’s time for you to change what you look at. If all you see is lies and deceit while everyone tries to take advantage of everyone else, try focusing on something that is good and honest.
It is like the Bible says in Philippians 4:8: Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always. (TPT)
If you are struggling to see the good in this world, all you have to do is change what you’re looking at. I promise you there are far better things for you to see!
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