I was cruising on the highway recently in my 2008 Toyota Solar convertible. I love driving her in good weather, and you don’t need to be good at math to know the car is old by today’s standards. I needed to change lanes. so I turned on my blinker, looked at the outside rearview mirror and saw nothing. I began changing lanes. Thankfully, just as I started moving into the lane two things happened simultaneously. A car appeared that was previously in my blind spot, where the angle of my mirror didn’t let me see them. As soon as I saw them, their horn began blowing loudly, causing me to immediately pull my car back into my lane. I watched them drive by and of course they gave me a look of “what are you doing?”. It wouldn’t have happened if I was driving a newer car because a new standard safety feature is “blind spot” warning lights on the outside mirrors.
Don’t you wish people had a blog spot warning light on them? I do because I might have learned about mine in less painful ways from others. The world is always easier when I know something about me and everyone else does too. The tension drops dramatically. If I tell you I don’t have good rhythm and can’t dance well, it’s going to be less painful for you when you watch me on the dance floor. You’ll probably even laugh and I won’t blame you. But what happens if I tell you I’m a good dancer (I don’t see my lack of dancing skills) and then you see on the dance floor that I can’t dance at all. What do you do? Do you laugh behind my back or choose to tell me? You might wonder how I’ll react and choose to say nothing.
Don’t be naive, we all have blind spots, but how many and how significant they are varied by person.
A true blind spot is something about you that everyone sees and knows, but you. To others it should be obvious, but you just can’t see it about you. It’s like having something in your teeth or for a guy to have your zipper unzipped in public. Others easily see what you don’t see. When you have blind spots, making them visible can only come from someone else who has the courage to tell you. It is easier to tell someone that they have something stuck in their teeth than it is to tell someone that under stress, they become a jerk. Your blind spots are being experienced by others in a way that is much different from how you think they are experiencing you.
I also sometimes wonder if sometimes the person knows, but they believe they are keeping it hidden from everyone. They see it as a flaw, a weakness or a liability, which they would be ashamed or embarrassed if others knew. They want to keep it hidden yet sometimes it’s only a lie they tell themselves, because others see it.
The best way to fix blind spots is to expose yourself to others, drop those defenses by admitting what you don’t do well. Once you do the dynamic changes. Someone whose ego allows them not to be perfect all the time opens the door to learning about themselves from others. If others don’t think you will be defensive, or bite their head off, they’ll tell you what you need to know because you should want to know it.
Once you know, it’s no longer a blind spot and you can do something about it.
And why worry about a speck in the eye of a brother when you have a board in your own? Should you say, ‘Friend, let me help you get that speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t even see because of the board in your own? Hypocrite! First get rid of the board. Then you can see to help your brother. Matthew 7:3-5 (TLB)
