Choose Who You Want to Be Isaac Lidsky Talks About His New Book, #8216;Eyes Wide Open#8217;

Choose Who You Want to Be Isaac Lidsky Talks About His New Book, 8216Eyes Wide Open8217 You could choose to read Isaac Lidskys new book,Eyes Wide Open Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities in a World That Cant See Clearly, as the story of one mans experience with blindness, but youd be doing yurself a disservice.Youd also be directly contradicting the express intentions of the author.One thing I really try to emphasize is that this book is really not about me, its not about blindness, and its not about disability, Lidsky says. I would not have written the book for any of those reasons.Instead, what the book is about is Lidskys eyes wide open philosophy on life.It happens that the way I gained this eyes wide open vision welches by the bizarre process of losing my sight, but the vision is for everyone, Lidsky says.The story of Lidskys blindness is not the core ofEyes Wide Openrather, at the books heart sits Lidskys believe that in every mom ent, we choose who we want to be and how we want to live our lives. Whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, that is our ultimate power and our responsibility.About a month ago, I had the opportunity to hop on the phone with Lidsky for a quick chat aboutEyes Wide Open. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, minimally edited for style and clarity.Recruiter.comI want to start with the title particularly, the subtitle Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities in a World That Cant See Clearly.Can you elaborate a little on what, exactly, a world that cant see clearly means in this context?Isaac LidskySo much of our lives the way we experience the world around us is really within our control. We confront circumstances beyond our control, but how they manifest themselves in our lives is entirely within our control.But it doesnt often feel that way, and too often, we experience our fears as objective truths, our self -limiting functions as truths. We misconceive our strengths and weaknesses. We misconceive success and value in our lives.The way in which I lost my sight, I sort of saw firsthand the role that we play in shaping the reality we experience. If were not careful, not aware, we see it as beyond our control. Thats what I mean by a world that cant see clearly.RCThis leads to another aussage in the book, which is the importance of tackling your challenges with eyes wide open. So, in contrast to a world that cant see clearly, what does it mean to see with your eyes wide open?ILLiving and leading eyes wide open is about understanding, recognizing, and embracing your role, your ability, your power, and your responsibility to create the life you want for yourself. Its about being brutally honest and transparent with yourself about whats important to you, what success looks like to you, what value looks like, how you want to spend your time, and who you want to be as a person, and its about hol ding yourself accountable for those choices.RCDo you have any examples that could illustrate what this looks like in practice? Maybe from your own life, or the book, or just general experience?ILIn chapter six of the book, I talk about how I welches fortunate to have a really awesome legal career going. I had graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and had a few amazing jobs in the public sector, like clerking for two Supreme Court justices. I really enjoyed all of that, and then I eventually took the obvious path to a fancy law firm job with a big signing bonus and all that.While thats a great path for a lot of folks, it wasnt for me. I was pretty miserable. So I put my money where my mouth is with this whole eyes wide open philosophy. I dug deep and figured out what it was I didnt like about my career and what was important to me what I wanted to do. The upshot was I essentially abandoned my legal career and moved my family from Manhattan to Orlando, Florida, where with my college roommate I bought a small, humble residential construction subcontractor.RCAnother really interesting idea in the book is the thin, elusive line between acceptance and surrender. Could you say a little more about that?ILAcceptance is critical. We should accept and embrace who we are as people, our different talents, attributes, and capabilities. But its a tricky thing because too often were too quick to tell ourselves what we can and cannot do.Ill give you an example from the book My wife conceived triplets, and leading up to their birth, I was doubly challenged as both a male and blind. I could have gotten away with not doing diapers and bottles. My wife would have let me off the hook and it was tempting to be like, Hey, its kind of a bad idea. I think I should skip out on diapers.But that would have been surrendering to my blindness or some notion of my blindness as a limitation. In the short term, it would have gotten me out of diaper duty, but in the long run, it would have done real damage to my conception of myself. Instead, I looked at it and said, Its not going to be much more difficult for me than it would for anyone to manage diapers and bottles with triplets. It would be hard for anyone, and maybe it will be a little more complex for me, but there are so many solutions and techniques and ways for me to do it.I needed to know if I was saying, I know I am capable, and I can do it if need be, but I am choosing not to or it I was saying, I cant do it.Ultimately, I knew that I could do it, and I knew that I couldnt justify the choice not to, because being an involved parent and helping my wife was something I thought was important to do. There was really no escaping the conclusion. So, Ive changed a lot of diapers in my day.Acceptance is often a lot harder than surrender.