Sometimes guidance is necessary to help ‘look’ into your life and figure out just what’s going wrong. One helpful professional advised ‘you need to stand still and take 5 minutes a day not to look- but to see’.I had no idea what she was getting at, but being an ‘A-type’ personality I went about the task, as if an assignment, and was astounded by the results.

If you take the time to ‘look’ it is amazing where ‘seeing’ can lead you. What she meant was – open your eyes and you will see that life is beautiful.

As primates we are highly visual creatures; beyond spoken language, vision is our next preferred form of communication. Our retina has a concentrated central area of photoreceptors (called the foveae) which allow us to see fabulous close up visuals – fine detail in focus with distinct and dramatic colour. Our lives play out like French art-house films so be mindful of this gift bestowed upon our species.

Dogs do see in colour, but with two different cones (the photoreceptors responsible) compared to the feline and primate three. They see blue and green more clearly than orange, red or yellow. A walk in the park is so much more interesting than watching a glorious sunset, although they‘ll sit companionably beside us while we do.

Our pets have limited close up vision and have to study us carefully to see changes in face and body movements – that look of imagined adoration is actually an intent stare to work out our next move – walk or dinner? Extensive peripheral vision makes up for lack of focus. An abundance of rods that fire in low light situations and changes in light density (seen as motion) create a perfect home guardian in our canine pets.

As a necessity to get through the day our primate brain slips unnoticed into automatic pilot. However, try spending a few minutes ‘looking’ with your wonderful 3-D technicolour vision outside of the tunnel created by our expedient minds. Play with your cat, get out with your dog and look up at the smile coming towards you, open your eyes and see that life is truly beautiful.