There is a difference between seeing and having vision. There is a difference between looking and seeing. Sometimes there are things that are right in front of you that you forget to “see”… we all do it, looking and looking for something and it was right there, under your nose all along. How many times have you searched around for something and when you went back to the place you started, there it was. There, all along… in front of you. Try it. Look around the room you are in for something blue. So often we look far away first, then once we find something, realize that if we just looked down in front of us, there is usually something closer we could have seen. I have done this with different groups of people and all have done the same thing. We look further away first to find what we are looking for. Sometimes, it’s not that hard…
So are you guilty of not seeing what’s right in front of you? AND… more importantly…Are you being seen?
There is a concept called Sawubona… it’s a Zulu greeting that means “we see you.” Orland Bishop, a youth mentor in LA explains it best. He says: “Seeing is a dialogue, it establishes you as a witness to a phenomenon. By saying yes we see each other….It becomes our agreement that seeing has empowered us to investigate our mutual potential for life.”
Why are we here at THIS same time in our lives? You are reading this for a reason. What has this moment given us to be able to accomplish? It’s an invitation to participate in each other’s lives. This seeing also obligates us to give to each other for that moment in each of our lives to be enhanced. How do I have to live, what can I do in order for you to live the life you desire? In order for you to be free? Somewhere along the way, we lost the imagination of what sight is and what these inner capacities really mean. We can’t pursue freedom or success out of self interest, if we limit one person’s freedom we limit our own. If we limit another’s success, WE too, limit our own. Success is not gained FROM something or TO achieve something, it’s to be present WITH…. And in that presence, we find our inner greatness.
Maybe it’s time to be seen. Maybe you are hiding too well? Or is there somone around you who needs to be seen?
This reminds me of something I read years ago by Robert Fulgham about the neighborhood game of hide and seek. About hiding too well that people can’t find you. About being the one that was always left unfound at the end of the game.
There is hiding, and there is finding. And sometimes, we don’t do it right. We don’t keep searching until we find… sometimes we give up right before we found it.
And when we hide too well we get mad at the fact that those looking didn’t find us.
Funny, isn’t it? We can see these things in our own lives. It’s like hide and seek grown up style. But sometimes we just don’t take the time to look…. to find and to be found.
See, and be seen.
So Sawubona… We see you.
Open your eyes….
It’s time to get found.
