“Interestingly, Koi, when put in a fish bowl, will only grow up to three inches. When this same fish is placed in a large tank, it will grow to about nine inches long. In a pond koi can reach lengths of eighteen inches. Amazingly, when placed in a lake, koi can grow to three feet long. The metaphor is obvious. You are limited by how you see the world. “
Vince Poscente
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So. I almost called this ‘lost and found.’
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“We all get lost once in a while, sometimes by choice, sometimes due to forces beyond our control. When we learn what it is our soul needs to learn, the path presents itself. Sometimes we see the way out but wander further and deeper despite ourselves; the fear, the anger or the sadness preventing us returning. Sometimes we prefer to be lost and wandering, sometimes it’s easier.
Sometimes we find our own way out.
But regardless, always, we are found.”
Cecelia Ahern
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Life, and understanding ourselves, is very often found in uncovering the obvious. This is the stuff that is so damn obvious and yet seems to get lost among all the other shit we have to do on our to do lists and what people tell us we should be thinking about <and sometimes even how we should think>.
And then … once in a while … we get a little lucky … and that which is lost among the blindingly obvious … is found.
We learn what it is we need to learn about ourselves and, well, ‘the path presents itself.’
Now. Let me be clear on two things.
First. This is nothing like uncovering the obvious in business. Business is where the idiots attempt to make the obvious extraordinary.
In personal life we are oblivious as to how the obvious is our extraordinary.
** note: this should make people think about how often we confuse what is important in Life and important in business
I find it painfully funny that in business we strive to make the obvious ordinary extraordinary <going to some relatively absurd levels to do so> and in personal life we strive to make the obvious so extraordinarily ordinary <going to some relatively absurd levels to do so>.
Second. This is not about all those studies and videos where they have a frickin’ gorilla walk thru a bunch of people playing basketball and you ask people to tell you how many passes were made and a majority of people do not even see the gorilla.
That is about seeing what you expect to see.
This is about ignoring, or dismissing, the obvious.
All that said.
I do not know one person who has not felt lost at some point in their Life. They may only glimpse ‘lostness’, they may be stuck in ‘lostness’, they may visit the vast array of ‘lost options’ in between, but everyone has visited some version of ‘lost.
It is the most visited vacation spot in the world.
And while visiting this hellacious vacation spot you invariably start looking anywhere and everywhere for clues on how to get out of this self defined hellhole.
And therein we find ourselves discussing the obvious and the overlooked.
We tend to seek out the details and pay attention to the small <if not minute> details and nurture these details in our heads <sometimes nurturing them to a point which enables them to grow to some disproportionate huge size> seeking something which could be regarded as “what makes us unique” and simply disregard the obvious.
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It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
Mae West
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Regardless.
Yes.
Details matter.
Yes.
When staring at your navel seeking inner truth there are a bunch of little things that can matter.
Yes.
In reality major changes can most often be found by discovering the most obvious and accepting the obvious as meaningful.
Yes.
It’s amazing how often we miss what’s right in front of us, the things we just don’t notice, even when they’re staring us in the face.
So.
How does his happen?
Our brains take in millions of bits of information every minute and we have this filtering system which attempts to make reason of everything without making us insane and, yet, that filtering system seems to work a little too well with regard to some of the most obvious things. Our brains have a built in innate ability to overlook the obvious as so obvious it must be meaningless < with regard to ‘why I think the things I do or why I do the things I do’>.
The obvious is simply the expected. And maybe think of ‘the expected’ in two ways:
– Expected as unremarkable.
I begin with his because if we believe the expected is unremarkable, we naturally zoom by them delving deeper or at least somewhere else for ‘the remarkable.’ Our brains tell us the obvious things about us CAN”T be remarkable so there has to be something else! <most people say pleadingly>.
– Expected things are flaws.
Oddly we almost always look at the obvious as our imperfections — the flaws and weaknesses that make us ‘lesser than’ in some form or fashion.
We do this instead of looking at the obvious, the sometimes seemingly ‘blah’ aspects of ourselves or the surface imperfections, as the things that make us distinct, maybe unique, and often remarkable in our own way.
All that said.
Suffice it to say self awareness is tricky.
Tricky in that while we may have good intentions we can tend to focus on the wrong things.
Or maybe worse?
Simply remain oblivious to the right things.
And the right things?
Sometimes they are simple.
The obvious stuff.
Maybe we should be taking a closer look at the obvious to better gain some self awareness.
Maybe we don’t need to invest so much energy delving any further than the obvious.
Maybe we should practice thinking about ‘what haven’t I noticed that might be worth noticing?’
Maybe we just need to take a look at some of the most obvious things right in front of you.
Look. I am not a betting man, but you can bet your ass there’s at least one that you’ve been oblivious to.
It is a Life truth that the most obvious things can disappear in front of our eyes and the most obscure seems to so often step into the spotlight.
We seem to prioritize obscure over obvious.
Uh oh.
Prioritizing one thing and neglecting everything else are two sides of the same coin.
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“I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.”
S.E. Hinton
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The main example in everyday life is the grind. The grind is overlooked, but obvious. In the digital age of ‘overnight’, often obscure, but obvious, success stories in the grind are easily overlooked.
Yes.
We are constantly overlooking much of the world around us and no, there is nothing mysterious about it. The key is to realize that this is just what attention is – selectivity. For a brain has a relatively infinite computing power, but we tend to put a telescope focus on one thing which means picking up less information about everything else. That’s how we are able to concentrate on anything at all and shut out distractions.
Oddly, uncovering the obvious may simply come down to discerning intent versus reality. When seeking self awareness we tend to have some idealized intentions which demeans reality. And by demeaning <or diminishing the importance of> reality it often makes personal insights seem impossible to find in obvious things <i.e., it cannot be insightful if it is obvious>.
Well.
Whole truths and actionable insights are more often found in the obvious.
The most obvious windows will provide the best views.
We learn what we learn about ourselves through not ignoring the obvious, but seeing the obvious as it really is and by doing so the path presents itself.
And circling back to the opening thought, maybe the most important thought is that which is lost can be found in the most obvious.
Ponder.