Half Empty -or- Why We Focus On What Doesn’t Work
Everything keeps on breaking! Nothing works likes it’s supposed to. I spoke with one angry and exasperated soul who was having trouble controlling his temper. I observed that our attention is drawn to that which does not work. We never notice when we get in our car, turn the key in the ignition and everything starts. It’s when the car doesn’t turn over that it catches our attention.
As I’ve contemplated this over the time since, I have come to believe that this tendency is more pervasive than I had ever originally thought. As I have looked back on situations I have seen and have witnessed, it’s easy for me to recall some of the terrible things I have seen, but much more difficult to recount the positive stories. It certainly may be the case that I see more negative than positive given my line of work, however, as I look at my own life it always seems the most prominent memories are the more traumatic ones. I’m not grateful when the engine turns over in my car for 364 days out of the year, but I sure remember that one day it did not. How much of that is a choice? So far, for me, it has not been a conscious one but if I am able to raise my awareness to when I am making that decision, could every day be more filled with joy and gratitude just by changing the factors that I focus on? While I think that is not the only piece to the puzzle, it seems like a really great place to start.