I wear contact lenses most of the time and glasses sometimes. Without correction, the world is a blur, allowing me to see clearly only items I bring within a few inches of my face. This is the way I wake up every morning, squinting and blind like an infant; unable to see the time or find anything that isn't in its proper place. While this is terrible enough, relief doesn't come with lenses.
Sure sure, new contact lenses work well, but give them six months and your world starts looking like the view through those cheap 35mm cameras that Time and Newsweek give away. The hideous part is that you grow accustomed to this degraded vision. You curse and rub your eyes when trying to read traffic signs and pledge to enzyme your lenses more often. But human beings seem to have a near infinite ability to adapt and accept; a blessing and a curse in one. While the former allows one to grow and flourish admist adversity, the latter causes a certain blindness to suboptimal conditions, an acceptance of bad situations which could be escaped or rectified: bad housing, bad job, bad relationship, bad vision.
Sometimes your eyes open though, and you get a clear look at the world, and see through the mist and veils. In the crisp cold air of tonight, my eyes cleared. My breath swirled out and the light glittered from the delicate green leaves and rough gnarled branches. The stars gleamed from their places in the inky blackness beyond the trees. And I looked about me, delighted for a few moments in the perfection and clarity. If only the world could always be so lovely.