"Better One? Better Two?" or Focusing

You're sitting in the chair at the ophthalmologist's office and he is asking you, "Better one? Better two?" as he flips lenses on that cyborg-owl looking contraption in front of your face. You ask, "Um, can you do that again?" The whole purpose of this tedious exercise is to bring the fourth row of randomly assigned letters into better focus and figure out your glasses or contact lens prescription. The key phrase here is, "bring into better focus".



Have you reached that point in the semester yet where you need to bring it into better focus? Some of us will be on spring break in a couple weeks, like me. I am hoping that will help sharpen my focus. It doesn't help that I am surrounded by seniors who all seem to have an incredibly severe case of senioritis.



When one reaches that point in the semester where one is figuratively in the ophthalmologist's chair, how does one bring it all back into focus? Try these tips:

1. Remember why you are in school in the first place - to get your degree. It's not that far away - just a few short semesters. You're almost there!

2. Take an afternoon off. If the weather is nice, spend the afternoon at the park with your friends or with your children. If the weather is bad, spend the afternoon doing something you like - go to the movies, meander in the mall, buy yourself flowers.

3. Listen to opera and sing along at the top of your lungs. Who cares if you don't know the words? Just make sure the windows are closed if you're in your car.

4. Volunteer for an afternoon at an animal shelter, a community garden, etc. Or put on a bright orange vest, grab a pair of work gloves and a garbage bag and pick up trash along the side of the road in your neighborhood.

5. Plant some flowers in your front yard. Or better yet, take some flowers to an elderly neighbor.

6. Sit down and actually write a letter to someone, or perhaps two someones.



The whole idea of getting back into focus is to get away from the books and computer for a while to clear out the cobwebs. Doing something a little crazy, like singing opera at the top of your lungs, or doing something for someone else, like volunteering or cleaning up garbage, or doing something creative, like planting flowers, causes us to refocus for a little while, kind of like plowing up that fallow ground in the field. Sometimes all it takes to able to focus better is a little bit of refocusing - not changing anything, just focusing better. So, how 'bout it? Better one? Or better two? Stay tuned . . .