Yesterday we looked at Roberto’s progress from -3.75 to -2.50.
In that post I emphasize that you really don’t need to buy things from me to fix your eyesight. This is an important point. You’re not being asked to spend money for knowledge (because of course Jake is part hippie and believes in sharing more than capitalist imperatives).
How about me talking about myself in third person?
But then lots and lots of people opt to buy things. And the not-hippie part of me does enjoy this as well. Money is a handy vehicle to increase influence of natural health ideas. You can get the message out a whole lot more effectively if you can afford social media managers and designers and programmers, and throw bloggers some green and feed the Google beast.
So today let’s play devil’s advocate and look at just why you should buy BackTo20/20 access (if yo have an invite).
1) You’re supporting the message of natural vision health.
Sure, it might be that I’m just saying all that.
Maybe I spend all of my weekends at the strip club, surrounded by big boobies and mountains of cocaine. Maybe I wear my favorite sparkly silver pants, and equally sparkly silver chains. A black shirt that spells out call-me-guru, in rhine stones.
Damn, I said NO PICTURES.
That’s a risk you’re taking. But maybe I’m just wearing faded jeans and an old t-shirt at my favorite neighborhood coffee shop, running Google ad experiments and testing what sort of media outlets should be bribed. Maybe I work on figuring out just how one spends money on social media things with effective outcomes.
Maybe it’s just true that I made all the money I’ll personally ever need in three lifetimes long before this #endmyopia project. That all this is all about having the future of our species not have to live behind lenses. Picture the lens industry execs wearing the sparkly pants, and the coke and hookers. Maybe that’s more realistic.
And maybe as this resource grows, I’ll continue using your contributions to raise awareness. On to #2:
2) You’re getting access to truly likeminded, motivated individuals, on the same path as you.
It’s an unfortunate reality. Everybody likes free things, and nobody respects them, one single bit.
There is lots of wisdom and insight in free forums and other venues online. But if you want to be assured that 100% of the people you read stories from are serious and dedicated and on the same page, our support forum is a fairly uniquely qualified place for you. No wannabe experts, no keyboard warriors, no talk for the sake of talk. Everybody you meet in the forum, has done the same sessions and knows exactly what you’re going through. If you don’t have just months of free time to weed through bullsh*t and pointless pontifications, I dare say our forum is for you.
Even just being able to read thousands of progress reports is worth the price of entry by itself.
And sometimes when I’m not immediately available, or just as other perspective, students may comment or add suggestions, or their own experiences, to your own questions. It’s really quite nice and does so much more than reading a book or just browsing the blog all by yourself.
Which brings us to #3 of why you should like BackTo20/20:
3) Direct access to Jake.
There’s that third person again.
The thing is, for every hundred e-mails I don’t give detailed answers for every day, I do spend inordinate amounts of time answering your individual questions in the forum. I don’t mind taking time doing so, because you’re in the forum. You’re a supporter. You put your faith and your money into this project. You’re part of the team. Also I realize that what I answer there once will be read by future students and used as additional insights and ideas.
Honestly, if there had been this option when I first tried to figure out how to get my eyes back, I’d have paid whatever the asking price. You name it, I’d have been throwing money at the screen.
A guy who genuinely conquered his myopia and then has been doing the same for thousands of others for over a decade? Available to answer all my questions directly? What’s that worth, not having to sit and wonder, experiment and worry, potentially waste months or years, or forever, not making progress?
I get asked every so often why I don’t just help out for free, being that I don’t need the money. To which I say, value. We’re making a trade. Money is stored time. You spend time working, and for that time you get money. Now you trade that stored time, in form of money, for other people’s time. Whether or not I need it is irrelevant. I’m all for trades, and this is a pretty favorable one for students. And then I turn around and trade that stored time with others who may help increase the reach of the message.
There it is. And you probably already have an idea about the in-depth nature of my forum comments. Here’s one today, which is also interesting otherwise:
Hi Jake,
Indeed long time no chat. First of all: congrats with having become a father!! How does that feel?? Big change I guess? Looks like the baby and the mother are healthy and that everything is working out well
Happy for you!
I have been super busy at work for the last few weeks, so I did not feel like sitting behind my computer at home, like I did all day in the office (came home pretty late most of the days). That’s why you didn’t hear from me for a while. Anyways, it has become time to update you on my progress now!
My differential prescription arrived last week. Have been waiting for that for a pretty long time. When I wear it at work I have to be disciplined not to lean forward, especially when I am busy doing detailed work on the computer under time pressure (like working on presentations or writing emails to clients which can not have any mistake). Also, at the end of the day it becomes a bit more difficult to look through the glasses, because my eyes have become tired. Nevertheless, I think this will all become easier after my eyes get used to it.
I have a question regarding your important advice of going outside at least an hour par day. I wonder if it counts that I travel from and to my job for two hours a day (of which c. half an hour biking and 10 min walking, the rest by train). I try to use my phone as little as possible during that travel time (I listen to podcasts instead) and look outside the window. Sometimes the windows are a bit dirty though (maybe that hinders the rehab process, because it makes your vision less clear??). Due to my job it is difficult to find other moments during the day to go outside. Also I wonder if it matters if I go outside when it is dark outside. The days are getting shorter, and in a bit of time I will leave my home in the morning when it’s still dark outside and I will get back when it is dark again…
Another question is just because I am curious if there is an answer:). My mom has multifocal glasses. Do you understand how something like that happens (having both plus and minus in your eyes) and how I can avoid this in the future?
Looking forward to hearing from you! Take care
Fleur
And …
One weird thing which I almost forgot to tell you. Often in the morning when I look out of my window without glasses on, I happen to be able to read some street signs and small letters on posters which are hanging approximately 5/6 meters away… Weird! The rest looks blurry though.. Have you ever heard of something like this?
Bruno jumps in with some good thoughts, and then I finally make it online to address Fleur’s questions as well:
Thanks for the thoughts, Bruno! ?
Fleur … yes like Bruno says, a walk outside has more of the ingredients to make for ideal outdoor time. Important though really is to adjust these premises to your life in a way that’ll work easily and long term.
What that, yes. The half hour bike ride, ten minute walk, and rest by train actually sounds like a fun way to get lots of distance vision time. What a cool commute! Don’t worry about adding to that if you can’t. Just avoiding the phone and seeing the outside, especially reading challenging signs during the walk and bike ride will do the trick.
Multifocal lenses, often something that happens with age. Firs we have myopia, you’re already familiar with how that happens. Then the lens hardens as we get older, so the focusing muscle can no longer shape it for close-up nearly as well. This results in poor close-up vision, and now you need glasses for both near and far.
Avoidable by starting with good habits early. Despite the lens hardening I’ve had a whole lot of students who haven’t needed reading glasses so far.
The thing about the signs you can randomly read at an unusual distance. This is why I strongly emphasize that active focus requires *reading* distant writing. Your visual cortex plays a huge role in vision, and if it “figures out” part of the word, it’s now able to provide a reference for focus. It’s a bit like an auto focus camera, if you point it at a plain white wall it might not focus. Give it contrast and it will. You need a reference to tell your eyes what the correct distance is. Beyond that, lots of tricky things happen in the brain when we deal with a visual reference that is already known (stored in memory) and being recognized again. As soon as your brain “sees” what the word is supposed to be, things snap into focus.
You want to recreate that experience whenever you have the opportunity. Challenging yourself at various distances, with this being the most difficult (and you don’t need to do it all the time), does a lot for ongoing progress.
Thanks for the congrats, too! I’m glad you’re back. ?
For every one Fleur there are a hundred casual blog readers who buy a reduced prescription and never figure out that it’s about stimulus, not diopters.
Which is the #4 and key reason for BackTo20/20:
4) A finely tuned, structured approach. 20 minutes at a time.
The blog is awesome.
It’s also way more reading that I’d want to be doing, to piece it all together. If the paid program is a complete picture of your path to 20/20, then the blog is a puzzle cut up version of the picture. Sure it’s all there, but you go have to find all the pieces, and sort out how they fit together.
That’s what you get, for free.
If you say, screw all that, just give me what I need, today. Then seriously, for far, far less than you’ll end up spending on glasses and glaucoma surgery and retinal detachment treatments down the line, BackTo20/20 is a pretty awesome choice.
And, that’s it.
It’s still way more fun to write the “why you don’t need to spend money” posts. I don’t like to sell stuff. Though it’s true, you’re getting quite a lot for your stored-time monies here. ;-)
Cheers,
-Jake
