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look attention listen

“No matter what you are looking at, you can find something wrong with it, something imperfect, something that is not okay with you.

Don’t worry, if you look hard enough you’ll find it.

There is also something ‘right’ with everything.

No matter what you are looking at, you can find something right with it, something perfect.

There remains, then, only one question: What are you going to look at? “

Neale Donald Walsch

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Ok.

 

I have written about how we “see things” before < https://brucemctague.com/seeing-and-well-really-seeing  > but this thought piece is a little different. This one is more about how attitude can affect what we see more than heuristics and real psychological stuff.

 

 

That said.

 

 

 

 

I am not an optimist.

 

Nor am I a pessimist.

optomist hope

 

I tend to believe I am a cynical optimist.

 

 

I love hope.

 

I love pragmatism.

 

 

I am pragmatically hopeful.

 

 

 

I decided to begin that way because I love this quote.

 

 

We choose to see what we desire to see.

 

Ok.

 

Maybe not desire … but what we expect to see based on out attitude toward Life <not just visual cues we have stored up in our heads>.

 

 

Life does not make it easy for us to see what is actually there because it rarely makes something simple for us.

 

 

Most things are complex.

 

 

 

In all there is bad and good.

 

 

In all there is wrong and right.

 

 

I don’t believe what I just wrote is an epiphany to anyone.

 

 

However.

 

 

I do believe not enough people think about it and how our own personal attitude can skew what we actually see.

 

seeing is seeing eyes-are-useless

Many, maybe most in today’s world, people see wrong …. and focus on wrong <albeit we may do the infamous ‘say something nice first’ before becoming maniacally focused on what we have identified as  ‘wrong’>.

 

 

And a smaller group of people, who hate those people who focus on only the wrong, become blindingly oblivious to wrong and talk about sweeping hope and the inherent goodness to be found within everyone.

 

 

Both options are bad. It is like only have an ‘on/off” switch when most of us should have an attitudinal dimmer switch.

 

 

 

Look.

 

 

For most of us … no matter what you look at … you will choose to see what you want to see.

 

 

The one thing I can guarantee you will NOT see?

 

 

A completed puzzle.

 

 

Life, the one around you or even your own, remains a puzzle yet to be put together.

 

It is a puzzle with pieces which can be pulled out and replaced … it is a puzzle with pieces yet to be found … and even with pieces yet to be made.

Attitudinally I believe we all know this but … well … we hate it. A work in progress is difficult to judge because you never really know where it is on the progress scale, therefore, we like to view things & people as ‘almost finished’ or even ‘main puzzle pieces are in place.’

 

 

We are wrong to do so … and most of us know so … but it is still natural for us to do so.

 

 

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“Things are pretty terrible but then again you don’t buy a puzzle that’s already put together.”

a tweet Jonah Green

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That all may sound terrible.

 

And it may sometimes even look a little terrible around you.

 

 

But .. is it really terrible? Are you looking at the wrong things or are you simply seeing what you want to see?seeing is seeing tree

 

 

All I can suggest is to look … really look … because sometimes the obvious is not really obvious and what you are shown is not really representative of what could be seen if you push what is being shown to you off to the side.

 

And, maybe most importantly, you need to push your attitude off to the side and try and see what is as … well … what is.

 

 

 

In the end …. all I can ask is … well … what will you choose to see?

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Written by Bruce