It all started innocently enough, just another routine day in the life of a college student. As a student, my days were filled with lectures, assignments and the constant struggle to keep up with the pace of academic life. I was grappling with an unexpected challenge, the seemingly insurmountable blur that clouded my vision whenever I glanced at the classroom board.

I would strain my eyes, squinting in an attempt to decipher the notes scrawled on the board. The words danced before me, an elusive puzzle that I struggled to solve. While my friends seemed to effortlessly absorb the information being presented on slides and whiteboard.

Finally, the day arrived when I decided enough was enough. It became apparent that my eyes were giving me a message, urging me to pay attention to a need I had overlooked for far too long. I discussed it with my parents and they took me to an optometrist.

The optometrist’s clinic was a clean, sterile space filled with the distinct scent of disinfectants. As I settled into the chair, the optometrist, a fatherly doctor with a warm smile, began the examination. The air was filled with a hum of machinery as he deftly moved the lenses in front of my eyes.

He repeatedly asked me, “Better? Or the other one? Now read the last line.”

As he asked me which alphabets were written on the slides, I couldn’t shake the feeling of excitement when I was able to recognise the alphabet with better lenses. In that instant, the awaited time arrived when the optometrist unveiled the prescription.

Leaving the optometrist’s clinic with my new glasses, I felt like the world transformed before my very eyes. I felt a mix of excitement and gratitude. The whiteboard was once an indecipherable sea of white, and now it bore crisp, distinct letters. The details were sharper and colours were more vibrant. I could not help, but marvel at the newfound clarity. It was as if I had been living in a foggy dream and now reality had burst forth in all its glory. The trees outside the window were adorned with individual leaves, and the distant buildings stood tall, no longer shrouded in a hazy veil.

I felt that every step felt different, as if the ground beneath me was more solid and real. The faces of people passing by held intricate details that I had never noticed before, the twinkle in their eyes, the lines etched on their faces.

The first lecture after getting my glasses was a revelation. I sat in the classroom, absorbing every word on the whiteboard effortlessly. The equations and diagrams that once seemed like abstract art now made perfect sense.

I realised I had been missing out on so much, struggling needlessly when a simple solution was at hand. Outside the academic realm, my daily experiences took on a new richness. Sunsets became breath-taking displays of hues I hadn’t known existed. Even humdrum activities like reading a book or scrolling through my phone became more enjoyable as the worlds and images leaped out with newfound clarity.

My friends noticed the change in me, a brighter spark in my eyes, a genuine enthusiasm for the world around me. Getting my eyesight checked for the first time ever, born out of necessity, had become a life transformative journey.

As I continued to navigate my life through the clear lens of my glasses, I couldn’t help but reflect on the power of a simple check-up to unveil a world that had been waiting for me to see it in all its vivid clarity.

Contrary to what some might think, wearing glasses does not make you look nerd, it makes you look like someone who’s got a secret superpower, the power to clearly see the world in all its full glory.

Glasses are like your magic lenses helping you navigate through the challenges of a blurry vision and turning frustration into a confident clarity.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 10th, 2024