We spend a lifetime looking at things in the same way, failing to see and learn new things. As the French Novelist Marcel Proust once said, “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

We don’t have to discover new landscapes to create new discoveries, we simply need to change the way we look at and think about things for us to see through new eyes and we will begin to see people and life differently.

We take the things we have for granted, we don’t stop to think about who and what is important, we become jaded. We’re short sighted in how we see our lives, each other, what we have, how we behave, how we could do better. As we go about life, we fail to see the bigger picture, of what things mean and why we need to approach those things differently.

We need to see what we see with a new set of eyes so that we become more caring, more compassionate and more tolerant. We need to see with new eyes. We need a better, more balanced perspective.

We need to see our lives differently. We need to see the people in our lives differently. We need to appreciate life and what people bring to the relationship. We’re all different, our differences must be accepted.

As Thoreau also once wrote, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” If we choose to see others through a set of new eyes, we will behave towards them differently.

When we see with new eyes, we will treat and see people differently, because we will feel different and because we will get a different, a better response back.

Ilana Estelle is a mental health and wellbeing advocate who combines educational insight with her personal experience of living with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. She holds diplomas in Counselling, Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Therapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Stress Management. Through her writing, Ilana supports others in navigating their emotional, mental, and physical health challenges. In addition to writing for The CP Diary, her work has appeared in healthy lifestyle magazines. Ilana is also the author of three books: Cerebral Palsy: A Story – Finding the Calm After the Storm, Spirituality, Healing and Me, and Survival: The Covid Years – Time for Change.

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2 comments on “Seeing with new eyes”

  1. I agree. Putting it succinctly, it's not what you see, it's a matter of how you see it and we can always change that.

    1. How we see something or someone is the key to a more peaceful life and existence. But sadly, we never make that connection, or the fact that we are often to blame for that. It's how we choose to see others.

      When we start seeing things differently, lives will change and for the better. As you say we can always change that, but sadly how many of us do, but we're still quick to apportion blame?

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