We See What We Look For

Consider this.  Two people watch a speech.  Both hear the exact same words, and yet both come up with drastically different conclusions.

How does this happen?

Well let’s say this were a speech about politics, and one person was a democrat while the other a republican.  Each person would see facts reaffirming their preexisting views backed by their political positions.

The brain and the eye may have a contractual relationship in which the brain has agreed to believe what the eye sees, but in return the eye has agreed to look for what the brain wants.  

Awareness is more of a choice rather than a general knowledge.

It’s like a word search and we are looking for the 10 words listed on the side of the puzzle.  Even if there are other words filled in, we tend to only see the ones we look for.  We use tactics that hone in on the first letter of our targets or chunk a couple of the letters together as our eyes scan the page.

It’s not that other words aren’t there, it’s that we aren’t looking for them, so in our world, they cease to exist.

Say I took that word search and gave five words to one person and five words to another.  Like the politicians who listened to the same speech, both would look at the same thing and come back with two completely different lists.  We see what we look for.

Go for a walk around your neighborhood and look at all the different styles of doors and roofing patterns.  You probably never would have realized all the different colors, styles, patterns, sizes, and textures.  And yet you have lived in this neighborhood for years, you must of looked at them.  But there is a difference between looking and seeing.

Looking is like breathing, natural and innate, seeing is whole separate level that requires effort and commitment.

What are we really seeing and what are we just looking at?

If life is a chaotic sequence of ambiguous letters, then our frame of reference would be the word bank sitting at the bottom of the page.  But how do we grow that word bank?  How do we look for new inputs in life?

Step outside your preexisting scope of life.  People often drive the same way to work everyday. You see the same things you saw yesterday.  Why not take a new way to work everyday? The latter constantly sees new things while the former constantly sees the same old things.

What if you…

- Listened to a radio station you’ve never heard before.

- Order something at a restaurant without knowing exactly what it is.

- Read a magazine you have never heard of.

- Learn to tie nots, read music, throw a boomerang.

- Escape in nature, and look for plants you have never seen before.

- Take up painting. Jackson Pollock throws paint on a canvas so can you!

- Go to a place you have never visited.

- Rent a movie you have never heard of.

- Read a book on a topic you think you’ll dislike.

- Have a wider variety of experiences. Who knows what new words you’ll add to your bank when you start doing different things.

When you diversify the elements of your life, your awareness grows and you begin to see a world of many viewpoints, and a puzzle that doesn’t just hold words, but sentences, stories, experiences, journeys, and adventures.  You’ll see a life that holds the most extraordinary potentials.

Have you ever looked at something a completely different way? How do you expand you inputs and widen your frame of reference?  What are some things your do to shake things up? Love to hear what you think!