The Lens You Wear: How Your Inner Vision Shapes Your Reality

The world doesn't change, but the lens through which we view it does. Which side are you looking through?

I keep asking myself: What do I want to be in life?

Until you ask this question—truly ask it—your life will continue to be like a boring, dull train journey. Wonderful, interesting things come up in the windows. People keep coming in and getting down at various stations that keep coming. Everything becomes oblivious, until you take notice.

You Don't See the World as It Is—You See It as You Are

Your world is what you are seeing from your eyes, which looks differently depending on the different lens you are wearing. A black lens makes everything gloomy. A rose-tinted lens makes everything falsely romantic. The truth is, to see, understand, and appreciate the world around you, you need to develop your inner vision.

Everyone sees the world based on their consciousness. You cannot see the real world unless your inner self becomes purified. This isn't mystical talk—it's practical wisdom that plays out every single day.

When We Project Our Fears and Assumptions

Everyone looks at the world from his viewpoint, looks at the way he thinks it is and not what actually it is.

I once saw a video where a person stops a car and driver, yelling, shouting, abusing: "Why are you going around my house so many times? I have been watching you... blah blah blah..."

And the driver informs: "I am simply trying to make my 6-month-old baby sleep."

The angry man wasn't seeing reality. He was seeing his own fears, his own suspicions projected onto an innocent stranger.

Here's another classic example: A person is seen walking with a slight limp, as if holding a leg. Four doctors—a neurophysician, an orthopedician, a surgeon, a psychologist—all give different interpretations of why he is limping, each filtered through their specialized training and assumptions.

The man finally comes and says: "One of my slippers is broken."

We are all those doctors sometimes—convinced our sophisticated theories explain the world, when the truth is far simpler than we imagine.

What the Wise Have Taught Us

Paulo Coelho understood this deeply. In The Alchemist, he wrote: "It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."

But here's what I've realized: the dream doesn't appear when the universe suddenly decides to help you. The dream appears when you finally open your eyes to see what was always there. When you clarify your inner vision, the opportunities that were invisible before suddenly become obvious.

The Sufi poet Rumi taught: "The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

Our struggles, our misunderstandings, our moments of seeing incorrectly—these aren't failures. They're invitations to examine our inner lens, to let clarity enter where confusion once lived. The world responds to what we bring to it. Keep learning, appreciating, enjoying, accepting gracefully with empathy, compassion, and the world will respond accordingly.

In The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb warns us about this very trap: we believe we understand far more than we actually do. We construct elaborate narratives that fit our existing worldview, our expertise, our biases. We become doctors confidently diagnosing a broken slipper as a neurological disorder.

But What If Nothing Is Coming?

I hear you asking: "What if I'm not getting any opportunities or jobs coming? How do I sustain?"

This is where the lens becomes most critical. When we're in scarcity—financial, emotional, professional—our lens darkens automatically. We start seeing closed doors everywhere. We interpret silence as rejection. We read the world through desperation, and desperation has a way of closing the very doors we're trying to open.

The Bhagavad Gita offers guidance here too. It teaches us about Nishkama Karma—action without attachment to results. This doesn't mean not caring about outcomes. It means:

Do the work. Control what you can control. Then release the grip.

When opportunities aren't coming:

First, check your lens. Are you only looking in one direction? Are you defining "opportunity" so narrowly that you're missing what's actually available? The train keeps moving, stations keep coming—but are you noticing them?

Second, sustain through action, not through waiting. In The Alchemist, Santiago doesn't sit in Spain hoping for his treasure to appear. He takes work with the crystal merchant. He learns. He grows. He sustains himself while staying alert to his true path. Survival and purpose can coexist.

Third, widen your vision. If one door isn't opening, are there three others you haven't noticed? Freelance work, temporary positions, skill-building, teaching what you know, offering services—these aren't distractions from your "real" opportunity. They're the stations where you learn what you need for the journey ahead.

The Gita reminds us:

"For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy." (6.6)

In times of scarcity, your mind will either be your ally—keeping you resourceful, open, and resilient—or your enemy, convincing you that nothing will ever work, that you're not good enough, that the world is against you.

Sustenance comes not just from the opportunities that appear, but from your ability to remain clear-sighted, resourceful, and open while you do the necessary work of survival. This isn't just spiritual advice—it's practical. People sense desperation. Employers, clients, and opportunities respond to energy. When you sustain yourself with dignity and keep your inner vision clear, doors open differently.

The Ancient Wisdom Still Holds

Your mind—your inner vision—is either your gateway to truth or your prison of delusion. The choice is yours.

When your consciousness is clouded by anger, fear, desire, or ego, you cannot see clearly. You see threats where there are tired parents. You see complex pathology where there are broken slippers. You see a dull train journey where there is actually a world of wonder passing by your window. You see no opportunities when perhaps you're simply looking through the wrong lens.

The Path Forward

The work, then, is internal and external. Purify your lens. Question your assumptions. Develop your inner vision. But also—do the work. Take what's available while you pursue what you want. Sustain yourself with whatever honest work you can find, not as defeat, but as the crystal merchant's shop was for Santiago—a place of learning on the way to treasure.

This doesn't mean becoming naively optimistic or ignoring real problems. It means becoming accurate—seeing what's actually there rather than what your fears, biases, and conditioning tell you is there.

Ask yourself: What do I want to be in life? Not what others expect. Not what you think you should want. But what genuinely calls to you.

Then start looking at the world through that lens of purpose rather than through the clouded glass of fear and assumption. And while you look, take the steps that sustain you. Both matter. Both are real.

The world doesn't change. Your vision does. And that makes all the difference.