I hate "survival of the fittest". It's not actually all that accurate for describing evolution, and it's used to excuse being a jerk so often.
It should have been "survival of the breediest". Anyway...
Many people misconstrue what Darwin meant by "fittest"; he didn't mean the most athletic or strongest, he meant the species that best fits it's habitat, or the most adaptable.
I'm missing part of a finger, but I can manage. I could live with a limp. But eyesight is a pretty big gamble. Yeah its small. But still higher than lottery.
That's why I opted for orthokeratology. I put my lens for one night, once every 7-ish days, and have 30/20 vision for the first 24h and then 20/20 for the rest of the week.
I used to do this. It's surprising how many people have never heard of this. The downside is of course, discomfort. It's a tad hard to sleep with a hard lens in your eye, at least, it was for me. Also, I find contacts to be a lot of hassle; including the fact that washing my hands so much leads to cracks in my fingertips in wintertime.
Still, I think maybe more people should give it a shot. If you miss a night or two, it's no big deal, which is a nice plus. If you stop wearing them at night altogether, it takes your eyes about 2 weeks to go back to their natural state.
One common technique for people who are close to or have age-induced presbyopia is to perform the surgery on only one eye, or, depending on the prescription, to apply it in different amounts. The idea is to get one eye which is good for near vision and one that is good for far vision. Sort of the same notion as bifocals, but applied directly to the eyes. Apparently the brain adjusts quickly and effectively to this and you end up feeling as though you have good vision at all ranges as long as both eyes are open.
I'm considering doing that. I'm 45 and my eyes have just begun to change. I'm still generally myopic, but so far the change just requires me to take my glasses off when doing close work. I'm going to give it a couple more years to be sure my eyes have more or less settled, then get surgery on one or both, in whatever degrees will give me the best overall visual acuity and flexibility.
If your eyes haven't actually changed yet, then it's something of a crapshoot. The idea is to adjust your vision based on guesses as to how they're going to change. That said, my optometrist says that they can make very good guesses. The only reason he's recommended that I wait is because I'm not far from the point where guessing won't be required, based on my history of general visual stability and current rate of change.
I tried that with contacts, personally I hated it. I got headaches, and it seemed more like a lose/lose than a win/win. It varies from person to person.
If you do that with LASIK, it's permanent. I'd highly recommend getting some contacts first and trying the monovision thing on a trial basis first.
It's wise to wait on LASIK til later years if presbyopia is just around the corner; for me, it's already here and settled in. My conundrum is choosing between leaving my vision as is and needing glasses for distance, or getting the LASIK and needing reading glasses. I'm hoping that such an operation might lead to a side benefit of reduced presbyopia too, but I haven't done my research on that yet.
People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.
