The last week the blog posts have been somewhat technical and academic. While blue light is very current, involves everyone of us and very pertinent, it is sort of dry reading. I found the study for it very interesting but I can be a bit of a nerd at times. So I want to lighten up a bit today.

We talk about thinking outside the box a lot. Basically we try to find innovative solutions to problems or a way around a situation by thinking outside the box. I have personally fit patients with very complicated and thick prescriptions with contact lenses and glasses they would wear over them to get the full correction in a more pleasing way. I have also tried innovative ways to do an exam when it wasn’t straightforward as with someone with special needs. We try to not be cookie cutter in our thinking but creative and novel.

Another area that we might have to consider something out of the norm might be in glasses or eye wear to meet special interests such as sports, hobbies or activities that are not the standard. I used to fly airplanes and I needed to wear correction for reading. I didn’t want the lined kind of bifocal but the progressives had some distortion in the periphery. Since I need to scan for traffic in the air all the time and yet still be able to read my instruments, dials and charts I needed to wear them while flying. So I got the progressive but placed them lower than normal placement in order to have a clear upper and still have access to the reading correction I needed. This was unique at the time and definitely the optician wondered if I had lost my mind but it worked in the airplane. It was not intended for everyday wear but for this specific purpose it worked well. We can’t always expect one pair of glasses to meet all of our needs.

Sometimes I need buttermilk for a recipe but I don’t have it and don’t want to run to the store.. I use a little vinegar in whole milk and let it sit for a minute and it becomes a good substitute for buttermilk. So the question becomes is “thinking outside the box” just a way of saying accepting a good substitution?

What it means to me is not being so stuck on doing things a certain way that I can’t think of creative options. It means being flexible. It means being open to new ideas. No one has all the answers. Sometimes we need to realize that it’s ok to not know what needs to be done but in doing so we can be open to thinking about alternative options. This is what it’s all about. Thinking Outside the Box.