The Girl with Glasses

A friend brought up an interesting point the other day.

I wear glasses. I need them to drive, see the television — most anything requiring me to see more than 10 feet in front of me.

I spend most of my day in front of a computer, where I do not wear my glasses. Some of my coworkers don’t even realize that I wear glasses because, during most of my time in the office, I don’t have them on.

So, the point my friend brought up was do I wear glasses or do I have glasses?

The idea seemed ridiculous. I’ve worn glasses most of my life. I’ve never thought of my need for corrective lenses in any other way. As we discussed the issue further, I supposed that the situation was similar to someone who uses reading glasses; they don’t really wear glasses -- they just use them for reading. Since, for about 70 percent of my day I don’t actually have my glasses on, does that mean that I, too, only use them instead of “wearing” them?

As semantics go, this issue is pretty insignificant but it did get me thinking. How many other definitions in our lives do we cling to and never think twice about, for better or for worse? And how do these definitions, these labels, affect the people we are?