The Impairment of Tunnel Vision

I've been listening and watching for some time things that are being said and done around me as well as around the world, and I've been trying to figure out how to explain the things I'm seeing. I see and understand a good number of things, but putting them into words isn't one of my gifts, particularly in speech, but even my writing seems to be limited at times in being able to express those things. This morning I was thinking about one particular subject, and in trying to figure out how to explain it, I came to thinking about tunnel vision.

I don't know how many people have experienced real tunnel vision. I've had it a few times before I learned how to deal with my performance anxiety. It's often creepy and weird feeling. What happens is a sort of binocular effect. There's an extreme fixation on a subject to the point that nothing in the periphery is visible. It came to my mind that one of the things I've been observing is the tendency for humans to use this tunnel vision to interpret and label people. This is one tendency we could do without, because people are more complex than a stereotyped label.

I hear a lot of promotion from several different sides of things proclaiming to be open-minded while at the same time dissing other ideas and opinions. Is this really what being open-minded is? A lot of people seem to use open-mind as a synonym to tolerance, but it's more than that. This to me is a true example of an open mind: It is considerate and listens, and respects other people's opinions by refraining from derogatory remarks during a disagreement. It exhibits patience with other's flaws or weaknesses and being friendly. Slow to make a judgement, slow to offend or be offended, willing to understand, ready to help or serve needs, these and many others are important items in being truly open-minded, at least in my little world, but has the potential to exist here. *wistful sigh*  

Using tunnel vision to determine the people and the world is extremely limiting. Be brave and step out of that tunnel for a second. I guarantee a whole new perspective and expanded view! The majority of people have something beautiful or amazing to discover in the background. One only needs to be willing to look to find it.

Elder Ashton was an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until his death in 1994. This was from a talk he gave at the church's general conference in April 1992. I thought it fit rather well with what I'm trying to say here, and I'm quite sure that anyone of any affiliation (or without affiliation) can gain inspiration from this quote.