Are you interested in new things?

Other people have similar issues or worse. To illustrate this phenomenon, look at something at a distance. Now, put your index finger in between yourself and the object. How many fingers do you see? Look at your finger - what happens to the object you were looking at? When you look at something in the distance anything in between will seem to double because the eyes are converged towards (pointing to) a more distant object. The foreground will be slightly out of focus. Natural convergence can slowly drift out of alignment. This happens very slowly and you probably will not notice this until you get your eyes tested. Convergence issues often play a role in vision problems. If your eyes are always converging slightly in front of what you actually want to see, then your eyes are over-converged and your vision will be out of focus - especially in low light. It's absurd, and yet all those who buy and sell shares know this effect well, and are reluctant to abandon it. Confirmation bias. Any new piece of information - whether true or false - confirms existing beliefs and obviously refutes opposing ones. It's more frequent in consolidated beliefs, such as faith in religion, politics and sports. The distinct sense that everything is worse than before, spiralling into pessimism. Naturally, this can happen in life. But that it should be applied to everything and always is rather improbable. The first piece of information perceived becomes the anchor for a subsequent thought process. A trick used by the seller who first calls out the (high) price of a second-hand car, after which any other model and a lower price seems like a real bargain.

When something new is viewed with suspicion and its value under-estimated in comparison to that of previous convictions. Recognizing the fact that you're not alone is part of the process required to cultivate self-compassion. Whenever you feel lonely or misunderstood, understand that many people are going through similar challenges right now. You are not alone. We've already touched upon the importance of thinking long term, but it's worth repeating. You have time to grow. It's okay if things take more time than you hoped, and it's often to be expected. But it's not a reason to lose confidence or give up. Stick to whatever major goals you want to achieve. Give yourself time and remain optimistic no matter what. See failures as invitations to grow. In environments where your pupils are opened widely, your depth of field will be very shallow. In bright light your pupils will be very small and your depth of field will be very large, resulting in a sharper image. The world will appear much clearer on a bright summer day. Vision Training principles for convergence This is to correct for convergence ahead or behind the object you are looking at. From a Vision Training point of view convergence is quite easy to correct using a piece of string as a feedback device. We use an optical illusion that takes place when you are looking down a string with both of your eyes open. If you have perfect convergence you will see a phantom cross with its center right at the object you are looking at. The center of the cross will be where you focused your attention on the string.

Fusion is one of the easiest things to check and correct. Novelty bias. All new information, be it bizarre, entertaining or with a strong visual impact, takes priority in cognitive mechanisms, while expected and `normal' information is put on the back burner. At the end of the TV news, the steel workers' strike makes less of an impression than the guy who threw a custard pie in the Queen's face. Since the memory system is based on associations and categorisations, when the brain possesses only partial information, it completes it automatically by resorting to associated categories. Voila, the stereotype. It's true that, thanks to the empathy mechanism, a brain can perceive another person's mental state. But there's a huge difference between this faculty and really knowing what they think. If you think you know what someone else thinks, then we are sorry to inform you that it's an illusion. Bias blind spot. If you notice that all these biases influence your friends', colleagues' and relatives' thinking far more than yours, then be aware that this is a bias. And, most importantly, always be kind to yourself. Practicing self-compassion Self-criticism is a habit as is self-compassion. You can learn to respect and encourage yourself during challenging times. You can become your best coach and most avid supporter. There is nothing wrong or selfish in doing so. You deserve every bit of it. Below are a couple of things you can do to practice self-compassion: Use self-compassion during challenging times.

Undertake a 7-day challenge. Tie the string to the back of a chair or to a door handle. Next you will need a paperclip or a bead, which you can move up and down the string. Place the loose end of the string on the tip of your nose so the string is stretched out. Place the paperclip on the string somewhere in the middle. When you look at the paperclip you should see two phantom lines crossing directly through the paperclip. If you see the cross in front of the paperclip then your eyes are under-converging. If you see the cross beyond the paperclip then your eyes are over-converging. If you see only one string, then one eye is suppressing the image. The brain is only attending to one image and is blocking the affected eye - you are only using one eye. Any misalignment contributes to your vision problem and makes images blurry. Shame this service isn't all that reliable. Memory is reconstructive, not reproductive. Put simply, it's not like a video recorder that reproduces film frames, but rather like a warehouseman who has to reconstruct all the pieces of an event, interlinked by a chain of mental associations. Whenever it is recalled, every memory may be slightly wrong, and further errors may be added the next time. In some cases, it may become wholly unreliable. A host of experiments and psychological studies have proved without a shadow of a doubt that memories are weak, that they deteriorate, and that they can be altered from outside and even `implanted' quite easily from nothing. This raises three big issues. Secondly, `fake news' circulated through the Internet has become rife since 2016, facilitated cerebrally by a collection of `hearsay' memories and a plethora of cognitive biases. Thirdly, it's a very useful asset for leaders of totalitarian regimes used to implanting fake memories in their people, as in the case of 21st century North Korea.

On the pathological gravity scale, there's also a false memory syndrome that carries with it all the symptoms of a traumatic experience, except for the fact that it is totally imaginary. Using self-compassion during challenging times Self-compassion is one of the most useful tools available to you during difficult times. Whether you failed an exam, were rejected by your date or became sick, remember to be self-compassionate. Self-compassion is the best antidote against negative emotions. It will prevent you from becoming miserable and will protect you against sadness, self-criticism, shame or guilt. It will help you persevere, turning you into bamboo that never breaks, but always bounces back to its original, upright position. I started practicing self-compassion a few years ago. Whenever I noticed I was being hard on myself, I would change my self-talk. Instead of telling myself I was stupid, I would tell myself that it's okay to make mistakes, that I would do better next time, that I tried my best or whatever else was relevant to the situation. Did it make me complacent? In some cases the outer eye muscles are too tight and refuse to allow the eyes to move in. If this is the case, then practice looking at your finger while you move it in from arm's length to physically touching the tip of your nose. When looking at something up-close, your eyes move in towards the nose. Aligning your fusion point is easy. Simply move the paperclip in or out until it coincides with the cross point of the X. In some cases people see a V, others perceive it as more like an A and some people see the phenomenon more like a Y. Any of these are fine as long as the convergence point is directly through the paperclip. When the paperclip is located at your fusion point, begin to move it back and forth while holding the fusion point through the paperclip. If you move the clip slowly, your brain will begin to align your eyes so they point directly to what you want to see.