When you finally see beneath the surface
Last Friday, I had a follow-up appointment with the surgeon who operated on my wrist.
He took a good look at the wound, confirmed the infection was on its way out, and gave me the usual instructions for caring for it at home. Just as we were wrapping up, I remembered the X-rays. ‘Oh right!’ he said, as if it was a bonus round. ‘Let’s check those out.’
He pulled them up on his screen. And I sat there, genuinely speechless.
Surprise
I pictured a thin, small metal strip with a few tiny screws, neatly tucked under the skin.
But what I saw on the screen told a different story: eight centimeters of stainless steel running along my wrist, held in place by eight screws that looked like they belonged in a DIY project, not my arm. The surgeon measured them as if it were just another day at the office. For him, business as usual. For me, quite a shock.
Later, I shared the X-ray in a group chat. Someone replied with an Ironman image, which felt fitting. That large, mechanical plate had been inside my arm for two weeks without me knowing. And here is the strange part. Before I saw the X-ray, when I felt stiffness or warmth in my wrist, I assumed it was the stitches, the healing skin, or the bandage pressing on it. Stuff I could relate to because I’d seen it.
Now, when I feel something, my focus goes deeper, past skin and muscle, down to the plate. I can almost sense it quietly doing its job. My wrist hasn’t changed at all. That plate has been there the whole time since the operation. The only thing that changed was what I knew about it. Turns out, that’s all it took to see things differently.
What you see is not what you get
Think about the last time you watched someone do something that surprised or irritated you. A colleague who went quiet in a meeting. A friend who canceled plans without much explanation. A team member who seemed disengaged for no obvious reason.
When we don’t have the full story, our brains love to fill in the blanks. We look at what’s on the surface (the behavior, the silence, the missed messages) and we start connecting the dots ourselves. It feels like we’re making sense of things, but really, we’re just guessing.
Then, you finally get the real story. Maybe it was a tough morning at home, a health scare they hadn’t mentioned, or a misunderstanding that’s been quietly brewing for weeks. Suddenly, the same behavior makes perfect sense. The person hasn’t changed; you just finally see what’s really going on underneath.
It’s just like that plate in my wrist. The feeling was always there. The cause was always there. I just needed to see it before I could really understand what I was feeling.
The power of transparency
When you make things visible, everything changes. A team that can actually see its progress, roadblocks, and patterns will respond in a whole new way than a team stumbling around in the dark. The work itself hasn’t changed, but now everyone’s perception has. And that’s what shapes how we act.
The same is true in any relationship, professional or personal. The more you know about what is actually going on beneath the surface, the more accurately you can respond to what you see. And the less likely you are to mistake the stitches for the plate.
How about you?
Where in your own life are you reacting to what’s on the surface, without knowing what’s really going on underneath? Maybe there’s a conversation you’ve been putting off, a question you haven’t asked, or a story you’ve made up to fill in the blanks because you didn’t have the real one.
Sometimes, all it takes is one honest question to get to the root of what’s going on. Or, in my case, two centimeters of X-ray. When you see what’s really underneath, it becomes a lot easier to respond in a way that actually helps.