You See What You Are Looking For

The eyes are funny things. The retinas project impulses from the optic nerve to the brain, where images are processed–and their meaning determined. Two people with good vision can look at exactly the same thing and see something completely different. One person can look at clouds and see that rain is coming, believing that rain will ruin their summer day. Another person will see that same rain as something positive, being necessary for flowers and other flora to bloom and grow. The single event is interpreted differently.

If you look to find people who are mean, hurtful, hateful, and cruel, you will have no trouble finding them. If this is what you look for, it will not be your eyes that are to blame for showing you a world that is a dark place. It will not be an accurate picture of the world you live in either. Instead, it will be about your mindset and your beliefs about human beings.

There are others who see people who are kind, helpful, compassionate, and generous. To them, the world is a place of light and abundance. Their mindsets and their beliefs cause them to see something very different. You may argue that this is not an accurate view either, as there are some people who are cruel, and mean, and there is injustice in the world.

What it is that you look for will determine the quality of your life and your experience, making it dangerous to look for only the negative in the world. Ever since it started spinning, the world has been full of light and darkness, good and evil, Spring and Winter, high tide and low tide, feast and famine, one being necessary to appreciate the other.

Because this is a ride where you are given a single ticket, it is no good to waste your time looking for everything wrong with the world, and instead look for what is right in it (of which there is far more). By looking for what is good you will find it, and where you bump up against things that you believe should be different, use your power to make a difference where you can, in your little corner of the world. Even though it won’t be enough to make the world perfect, your improvements will make a difference.

We look for evidence to confirm what we believe to be true. If you look for the negative, you will find it. If you look for the positive, it will be clearly visible to you.