A Blind Test At Work By A Redheaded eGeek

Let’s break down the title of the post…

• A Redheaded
• eGeek – Obviously I’m talking about ME because I have red hair and yesterday I explained about the whole eGeek thing. I’m sure you’ve read that post by now. (winking at you)
• At Work – Apparently I was at my place of employment.
• A Blind Test – Hmmmm…Was I testing blind people at work? What in the world is my job if I was testing blind people at work?!!!

I think we should start at the beginning because I might be confusing you.

Blindness and Blind People

Are you blind? I mean, are you physically unable to see with your eyes? There are quite a few very famous and/or talented people that are blind, such as:

• Andrea Bocelli
• Stevie Wonder
• Ray Charles
• Louis Braille
• Helen Keller
• Jose Feliciano
• Ronnie Milsap

I bet you’ve heard about most, if not all, of those famous blind people. I’m always in awe of their great accomplishments. Their success was double tough to obtain because they couldn’t see the world around them. I CAN see with my physical eyes. I do wear glasses to have crisp vision like many people who are older like me, but I can still see great.

A Blind Test

There is a hallway at work that is probably ten feet wide and not very long with double doors at each end. Well, I have been working until 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. each night lately and most people in the office are gone already. It was past time for me to go home and I was pretty tired. So I was walking down this ten foot wide empty hallway and I thought, “I wonder how it would feel to be walking blind.”

I know I’m strange, but bear with my uniqueness. 😉

So I go back to the end of the hallway and count how many steps to the other end. I was able to take thirteen steps, reach out, grasp the door handle and pull it open. I turned around and walked back towards the other door and recounted my steps to make sure it was really only thirteen. Sure enough, it takes thirteen steps for me to get from one end of the hallway to the other end.

Having established exactly how many steps were required to get to the end of the hallway and knowing that the office was practically empty (only three of us were still working), I decided to try being blind. I closed my eyes and started walking. Taking my first two steps was easy, but when I took the third step in TOTAL DARKNESS, I felt unsure even though I KNEW that the hallway was thirteen steps long.

I kept walking, but very cautiously. It almost felt like I had lost my freedom.

By the time I had reached the eleventh step, I had to stop. I felt like I was going to hit the door any second, so I opened my eyes. Since my eyes had been closed and I felt unsure of my steps, each step had become shorter. I was much further from the door than I had anticipated. With my eyes open it took six more steps to reach the doors at the end of the hallway.

So what do you think the redheaded eGeek did next? I had to try it again. I turned around and faced the other end of the hallway. This time I was a little more sure of myself in the darkness, but by the eighth step I felt I might run into something again.

I stopped, but kept my eyes closed.

While standing in the hallway with my eyes closed, I tried to get acclimated to the walls on all four sides of the hallway. My mind still could recall the texture, color and relative distance from one end to the other end. I knew that I was completely alone and no one was going to run into me nor would I run into anything else since the hallway was completely empty. Obviously, I had NOTHING to fear, so why couldn’t I just walk boldly forward thirteen steps and get to the other end?

Fear.

One hundred percent fear of the unknown.

With my eyes closed, my physical world became shrouded in darkness. No matter how much I wanted to boldly walk without fear, the darkness was overwhelming and held me back. I had several choices to make at this point:

1. Would I open my eyes, tell myself it was a stupid idea and forget it?
2. Would I open my eyes, tell myself it was a great test and go back to my office?
3. Would I open my eyes, go back to the end of the hallway, tell myself if was a great test and I needed to succeed at getting to the other end with my eyes closed because there was nothing to fear?

I chose #3.

Standing at the end of the hallway, I closed my eyes, told myself this was only a temporary condition and that nothing was in the hallway that would hurt me. Taking a deep breath and giving myself one last vote of encouragement that I could walk blindly forward to the other end of the hallway, I started walking.

A few traits that become quite evident after you get to know me are…I am very patient, inquisitive, fascinated by learning and extremely determined. After taking my twelfth step at a regular pace in a darkened world, I reached out my hand, took another step and felt the handle of the door. I had accomplished my goal of walking blindly with confidence and determination to get from one end of the hallway to the other end in the darkness. Indeed, I had succeeded.

Every day most of us walk blindly in a lighted world because we are overcome with a fear of failing, pain, heartache, unhappiness and many other reasons. We are blind even though we can see everything around us quite clearly. Since we can’t see what is going to happen in the future, we have to just believe in happiness and prosperity for tomorrow. The darkness that blocks our vision of the future has to be respected, ignored and challenged in order to fulfill our dreams. How we manage our fear of the darkness is really the key and only you can decide if you will stop walking or if you will boldly step forward.

“The question is not what you look at,but what you see.”~ Henry David Thoreau ~