I’m going to need people to start using their brains a little bit. Not a lot. Just a little. Marginally more than currently.
I interact with a lot of people on any given day. Different people, different contexts, different problems. And yet there is one thing, one very specific thing, that shows up everywhere, in everyone, with remarkable consistency. The complete and total inability to think past right now.
Right now it’s fine. Right now it doesn’t hurt. Right now I don’t feel like dealing with it. Right now this feels like the correct decision and that’s enough information for me, thanks.
Right now. Right now. Right now.
This is tunnel vision. And before you decide this doesn’t apply to you, that’s exactly what someone with tunnel vision would think. Stay with me.
It looks different depending on where you find it. It’s the person who knows something in their life needs fixing, a habit, a situation, a relationship, a health thing, and keeps not fixing it because right now it’s manageable. It’s the person who makes a decision at work based entirely on what’s convenient for them today, without pausing to ask what it costs everyone around them tomorrow. It’s the person in your personal life who does the thing that feels good to them in the moment and genuinely cannot see why anyone else would have feelings about it.
And here’s the part I find both funny and a little irritating, they’re not doing it intentionally. That would almost be easier to deal with. They just genuinely haven’t looked up from their immediate reality long enough to notice there’s a wider one.
The thing is, I could almost accept this if it only affected the person doing it. Okay, fine, your choice, your life, your consequences. I respect the confidence. But decisions have a radius. They land on other people. On whoever is next to you, working with you, relying on you, or just existing in your general vicinity. We are annoyingly, and unavoidably connected. You don’t get to make choices in a vacuum just because it feels like one.
What gets me is that most people with tunnel vision think they’re being decisive. They’ve made a call, they feel good about it, they’ve moved on. Meanwhile everyone around them is quietly absorbing the ripple effects of a decision they had no say in. And if you point this out, the response is usually some version of - but I did what made sense to me. Which. Yes. That’s the problem.
I’m not asking for a full philosophical audit before every choice. I’m asking for one extra second. One moment of wait, have I actually thought about this? All of it? Not just the part that’s directly in front of me?
Widen the horizon a little. Notice there are other people in it. Accept that maybe, just maybe, there’s a consequence you haven’t considered yet. All it takes is one extra minute. One extra thought. One extra angle.
That’s the whole ask. It’s not complicated. It’s just apparently very hard.
Try doing it. Not for me. Not for others. For yourself. Because tunnel vision is a lot like jumping in mud, others might get some stains, but ultimately you’re the one who ends up dirty.
Save yourself from it.
