On Having a Good Eye

When your strongest gift becomes your greatest resistance

For as long as I can remember, people have told me, “You have a good eye.”

A good eye for design.
A good eye for fashion.
A good eye, or ear, for music.
A good eye for colour, composition, and creativity.

Over time, I started saying it about myself too, not necessarily because others were saying it but because it was true.
I have a good eye.

But somewhere along the way, that good eye stopped feeling like a gift and started feeling like a burden.

Because I had a good eye, I could see when something wasn’t quite right.
If it wasn’t excellent, I struggled to release it.
If my work didn’t measure up to what I saw in others, I would hesitate — or stop altogether.

Ironically, I could see brilliance everywhere else.

I could see the quality in other people’s work, the potential in their ideas, the strength in their execution. I was good at building other people’s visions, refining other people’s plans, and helping others bring their ideas to life. But when it came to my own work, my own creativity, the same good eye turned harsh.
Critical.
Unforgiving.

And over time, I began to realise something: the very gift God had given me was being used against me.

This is how the enemy often works with people who have a good eye.
He doesn’t take the gift away — he perverts its purpose.

What was meant to help us build becomes the reason we delay.
What was meant to sharpen us becomes the thing that paralyses us.

We call it perfectionism.
We call it comparison.
We call it impostor syndrome.

But underneath it all is a distortion of sight.

Many of us with a good eye have learned how to nurture everyone else’s work while neglecting our own. We are quick to champion others, slow to extend the same grace inward. We can see greatness in others clearly — but when it comes to ourselves, we struggle to believe that what we carry is worthy of time, patience, and development.

So we shut things down early.
We abandon ideas before they have room to grow.
We “kill the baby” before it ever learns to walk.

In this season, God has been inviting me to return to the original intent of my good eye.

Not perfectionism.
Not pressure.
Not comparison.

But stewardship.

A good eye was never meant to imprison us.
It was meant to help us tend what God has entrusted to us.

That means learning when something is ready — even if it isn’t perfect.
It means allowing our work to be seen while it’s still forming.
It means using the same discernment we offer others on ourselves, with patience instead of punishment.

I’m learning to honour the gift without letting it harden me.
To trust that what God placed inside me carries value, not because it’s flawless, but because it’s His gift. God has been calling me to surrender rather than perfectionism. There are things that I’m working on, and I desire to improve endlessly and make perfect, and I hear Him say, “Let it go. It’s fine as it is. Release it.”

This space exists for those of us walking that same path.

For creatives with a good eye who are learning how to see rightly again.
Not just outwardly, but inwardly.
Not through pressure, but through presence.

If you’ve ever felt held back by the very thing that was meant to propel you, you’re not alone.

Sometimes the work isn’t in learning how to see better.
It’s learning how to look with mercy at what God is already growing.

In coming reflections, I want to linger here a little longer, exploring what it means to live with a good eye without letting it turn into pressure, how faith reshapes the way we create, and how perfectionism often grows where identity feels unsettled. This won’t be about producing more or trying harder, but about learning how to see — and steward — what we’ve already been given. I’ll keep walking slowly, noticing carefully, and sharing what I find along the way.

—The Good Eye Shutter

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Paróquia Nossa Senhora Auxiliadora, Sao Paulo

I walk places slowly and notice what’s present. These photographs come from time spent paying attention to architecture, light, symmetry, and atmosphere, allowing a space to speak without trying to shape it.

This is the kind of seeing I carry wherever I’m invited.

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Start your week with God. Vai com Deus.

Till next week,

xoxo

Jem.