Sunday afternoon today, on this 7-day-a-week project that is @endmyopia. It’s catch-up day.
Recently I finally figured out why you can find me here, on @endmyopia ,basically every single day. Because if you have a sense for your eye guru by now, you probably know that I’m actually not that interested in fame or money, or reading a zillion e-mails. I had various half baked ideas, but no really clear idea why I was doing it. Why put that much time and effort into a thing like this?
Someone with a rather large Youtube following and a similar story, finally pointed me to the truth. You know what it is?
So simple, in hindsight. Also this, it’s a … creative outlet.
I should say it’s because I care about you and humanity at large, and saving the world from myopia. But then you’ve seen my face and you’d know better than believe that. Getting all the e-mails with great results is a huge bonus, but even so, the motivation to do it every day is a creative one.
You get pulled into restoring vintage cars, or collecting watches, or building a house, or writing or painting or whatever, because you need a creative outlet. And since you probably don’t think of that underlying motivation going in, you might find yourself way, way deeper in a hobby than you’d ever have anticipated.
I like writing. I like doing silly things in Photoshop. I like irritating the status quo (really, really like to). I’ve spent so much time fixing my own eyes, and helping others, that putting it all online turned into an irresistible, every day fun project. Obvious in hindsight.
I’m writing on a Sunday, because there is nothing else I’d rather do right now. Sit in a coffee shop, with a great Thai tea, baby mama playing on the Internet, writing you a blog post. As good as it gets, right now.
And a huge bonus, this creative outlet reaches you, and does something for your life as well. And Bill’s life, check this one out, awesome story:
Isn’t that brilliant? Will I be remotely that engaged and conquering challenges, at 73? (will you?)
How else could you hope to reach so many people, who then share with you (us!) their own stories and experiences?
It’s not just eyes. Eyes are one catalyst to self discovery, to empowering you to take back control over your health, and in turn explore science, biology, examine your life and routines and habits, and possibly take the opportunity to go see more of the beautiful things all around.
And yes, perhaps the post title was a tiny bit presumptuous.
Also if you aren’t subscribed to the Youtube channel (and chances are you aren’t, by the subscriber numbers so far), you missed at least the latest two videos.
Most recent, my musings about creating fake studies to lure a thousand optometrists into prescribing contact lenses to 7 year old children:
See what you’re missing, non-subscriber to the fancy Youtube channel?
It’s probably also only going to get worse, with the click baiting headlines. A very big time journalist and friend recently pulled me aside and told me that while it’s ethically questionable and generally unfortunate, click bait headlines are the future. And that I (and really, you) better get comfortable with it.
I like the click baitey headlines.
Here’s the other Youtube video you likely missed, the quick edit from the previous blog post about the father who discovers the hard way what glasses do to six year old little boys:
That little one is never even going near an optometrist.
Another heads up, one Jake will be headed to Myanmar later this week. That means sketchy Internet, likely some days of delayed responses in the forum (and e-mail, but that’s same as usual), and possibly even missed days of blog posts. I apologize in advance, it’s an unavoidable exploratory trip for some possible future investments in exciting places (and keep baby mama happy).
Cheers, thanks for all the awesome comments and e-mails!
-Jake
