Zooming In: Taking a Closer Look

If you are like me, you are probably suffering from Zoom fatigue over this past year.  The amount of time that we spend in front of pixels, the constant interruptions and technical challenges can make Zoom meetings exhausting.  Yet what has perhaps irritated me the most was the person on my screen that looked totally disengaged, unhappy and distracted.  He was in every single meeting.  Every. Single. Meeting.The reason he was in every single meeting was that this person was me. Zoom gave me the ability to see myself as others in real time from their vantage point.  And to be honest, I did not like what I was seeing.  Although I was with others who were important to me, I appeared bored.  I frowned a lot.  I looked at my phone constantly.  I just came across like I was not interested in the other people on the call.  In all sincerity, that was not the case, but it was I appeared.  (I learned that my listening face and my frowning face are the same. ☹) For the first time I was able to see something that I have never been able to watch before, how I interacted with people from an outsider’s view.  It occurred to me that there are things about each of us, that we are not able to view.  We each have attitudes, expressions, mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies that nearly everyone can see, except us.  While we can see all these flaws in others, we are incapable of seeing them in ourselves. This is one of the reasons that Christian community is so important.  Others can show us what we cannot see about ourselves.  These can be good things.  Others have to ability to notice gifts and talents that we possess.  Because these are natural to us, we fail to notice that they are unique and not held by everyone else.  Other times, people can lovingly point out things that we would never be able to see on our own.In humility, it is possible for each of us to know our intentions, our values, and our attitudes without the help of others.  But is nearly impossible to know the impact we have on others without the honest input that those that we want to impact. Perhaps Zoom has given us the ability to see something that appears obvious to everyone – a view of our own self.