What color are your best friend鈥檚 eyes? Are you sure? What about your spouse? Your boss? The colleague who works down the hall? If you鈥檙e trying to recall someone鈥檚 eye color, an educated guess would be brown since they make up the largest percentage. Hazel, blue, green, grey and amber round out the numbers.
We often say it is someone鈥檚 eyes that jump out at us when we first meet them.聽 In fact, more than 70% of us believe it is the eyes we notice first. It turns out there are actually other features that stand out as much, if not more, including how we interpret face shape, but there is just something about the eyes that are so compelling. But we have a problem. We aren鈥檛 noticing them the way we think we are. Or at least the way we used to.
Of course the changes to our interactions over the last months means we aren鈥檛 seeing each other to the same extent, but our decreasing ability to describe someone鈥檚 eyes goes way back. Years prior to the pandemic. We aren鈥檛 noticing each other in the same way we once did because we are no longer spending time looking each other in the eye.
Whether it鈥檚 Shakespeare, Cicero, or a slew of poets and musicians, we are often told the eyes are the window to the soul. If we want to get to the heart of a matter, we would do well, we are told, to look someone in the eye since that is where we will see what the words might not tell us. But here鈥檚 the thing: we aren鈥檛 looking into each other鈥檚 eyes the way we need to because we are so distracted by what鈥檚 going on around us.
When a child has something to say, too often parents are also trying to get a laundry list of activities done at the same time, meaning the conversation happens on the periphery of other things. There鈥檚 little chance to see the range of emotion displayed in the eyes and not heard in the words. The same goes for spouses or friends. Think of how often our phones interrupt those talks, resulting in more time 小蓝视频 spent looking down at a screen instead of up into the eyes of those who should come first.
The other unfortunate outcome of our decreased time spent with other people (again, which was happening long before last winter) is that we aren鈥檛 having the conversations we need to be having face to face. Conversations about politics, religion, social issues or news events have moved out of the personal realm and become a digital blood sport that too many are playing.聽 We鈥檙e not talking, we鈥檙e posting. We鈥檝e removed discussion and replaced it with dismissing those who don鈥檛 agree. We鈥檝e let discourse slip through our fingers and reduced it to what gets banged out on our phones. If you don鈥檛 agree, we try to take away your right to speak. We鈥檙e not seeing the people we鈥檙e hurting because we鈥檙e not looking each other in the eye and as a result it鈥檚 too easy to reject anyone and anything others say. The resulting discord, disharmony and disunity are damaging us.
When we connect eye-to-eye it鈥檚 more than words that are shared. It doesn鈥檛 mean we will agree on everything, but if we make the effort to stop and see the other person as we speak, maybe we will be more willing to hear and respect what is 小蓝视频 said.
Shouting slogans across boulevards or pounding out harsh retorts on keypads does little to advance the conversation amongst anyone. But speaking person to person when there is opportunity to witness the earnestness behind the words, there is greater chance to learn from each other and move the dial on the dialogue. We won鈥檛 suddenly see eye-to-eye on everything, but the more important thing is that we get back to seeing each other鈥檚 eyes once again. That鈥檚 my outlook.
