On the present.

One look and I knew his eyes were not normal. His head was tilted, he walked with an ambling gait and his eyes were… different. Little did I realise what his condition would teach me.

Decisions, decisions.

A final year medical student is faced with them. Last week, faced with many things about the future, I was heavy-hearted one night. So what do I do, where do I go? What if this happens and I become like this, and what if that happens and I forget about mission work?

Fear comes in in the face of uncertainty.

Have you ever been faced with a situation where you had to make a decision too? And were you afraid of making the wrong choice? Perhaps, the scary part is not in the decision making itself, but in realising how this decision at hand may affect the path you take for the rest of your life. It could be choosing your course of study, applying for a job or choosing to make a decision like marriage or having kids. There’s no turning back sometimes.

When the patient walked into the clinic, the phone rang. As my mentor attended to the call, I took the opportunity to speak with the patient, whose eyes were deviated on both sides with a divergent gaze and flickering persistently with nystagmus.

“I heard you asking the patient if his vision was better when he looked in the distance or at near objects. He said it was better on close-up right? And why so? This is because when his eyes look at something nearer to him, they converge. Hence, his vision improves.”

That was a revelatory moment for me.

His vision improves on close-up. It reminded me of what a friend told me when I shared with her how frustrating and scary it was to think about the future, with regards to specialising and medical missions. To which she said, “Don’t look so far ahead, Wai Jia. It’ll just make you confused and frustrated. Just focus on the present, and trust that God will lead you step by step when the time comes.”

Focus on what’s close at hand, because looking too far ahead sometimes simply blurs one’s vision. As we go step by step closer to our destination, things become clearer in time.

“And why do I say that this patient has had this condition of nystagmus (flickering eyes) since birth? This is because he’s walking about absolutely fine with that nystagmus. He has adapted to it. If he had acquired this condition at a later point in his life, it would have caused him immense discomfort and distress. He wouldn’t even be able to balance.”

It made me think. Many of us are unable to tolerate uncertainty. Most of us prefer having a goal to work towards over having too many choices. Even as a child, I remember having an ambition at every point in my life, even if it was an unrealistic one- a painter, a teacher, a writer, a veterinarian, a National Geographic journalist, being Oprah (ha), a nun, a social worker… At every point, I needed my eyes to be fixed on something. And whatever ambition I had at that point largely influenced what I did with my free time- hence my makeshift aquarium of self-caught tadpoles and frogs and stacks of National Geographic magazines at one point.

I thought to myself, it’s no wonder this period of uncertainty has been discomforting- this vocational nystagmus, like acquired nystagmus, has certainly thrown me off-balance, indeed. On the other hand, people with congenital nystagmus (from birth) or who’ve never really had an ambition before, learn to adapt and go with the flow easily.

I am learning, that to rid myself of this perpertual giddiness, I must learn to control my eyes and focus on what’s at hand, what I can do, and trust that God will reveal just enough each time for me to make the decision at hand, instead of feeling distressed that my vision blurs on looking far ahead. My vision will then become clearer as I learn to focus on the present, trusting that His vision for my life will guide me to where He wants me to be eventually.

“After all, how can you want the best for yourself and for the needy more than God does? He’ll put you where you’ll best be. Don’t look too far ahead.”