The Unseen Benefits of Being Color Blind

I first realized I was color blind while in kindergarten. As part of an art project, we were asked to draw portraits of our family. I remember sitting down with a seemingly expansive sheet of plain white paper and looking through my crayon box to find the right colors.

Starting to draw from the ground up, the shoes were easy — white. When I went to find a crayon that matched the color of my skin, I scanned the box and spotted what I thought was a match — green. When finished, I was proud to share a beautiful, stick-figure portrait of my family

When I brought home my green-skinned family portrait to show my parents, they weren’t surprised. My maternal grandfather was color blind. My younger brother, Nick, would turn out to be color blind as well. When you are color blind, it helps to be surrounded by other members of your family who see the world in a similar way, otherwise you might feel like an outcast.

When people discover I’m color blind, they often ask if I see the world in black and white. This isn’t the case for me at all. I see lots and lots of colors everywhere, but they’re the wrong ones — or so I’m told. I often describe the condition of being color blind through the example of lawns.

People tell me lawns are green. Knowing this, I should logically associate grass with the color green. But when I hold a red-orange crayon next to a blade of grass — they look nearly identical in color.

Taking color blind tests can feel surreal. Friends ask, “Don’t you see the number 8 in the circles?”.

“It’s right there”, they say, tracing it with their finger.

“I still don’t see it,” I respond, bewildered and slightly awestruck.

It’s understandable why being color blind may predispose one to being more open-minded to the viewpoint of others. If everyone else says there’s an “8,” maybe I should listen.

More recently, I’ve come to realize there are unforeseen benefits to being color blind. When almost everyone sees the world differently than you do — literally — you’re forced to allow for other viewpoints. You have to be open-minded and receptive to feedback from people, otherwise you’ll risk walking around with mismatched clothes much of the time. From a very young age, you have to let go of being ‘right’. And as an adult, you don’t let yourself become rigid.

When your son tells you that your socks don’t match, it’s a living reminder that adults don’t always know best.

When I hear about the divisiveness across our political spectrum, I approach the varying viewpoints with the same curiosity and open-mindedness I bring to colors. When we can acknowledge that there is no right or wrong, just different ways of viewing things, we can engage more effectively in dialogue.

Perhaps we could all benefit from being less rigid, less righteous, more open-minded and receptive to other’s viewpoints, more . . . color blind. As anyone who is color blind will attest, the world isn’t as black and white as it’s made out to be.