You Can Only See What You Are Searching For

Today I had an interesting discussion with a friend, whom I was supposed to help find a solution to his problem. Every time I proposed a solution, he would shoot it down with scepticism, and re-emphasize that his problem was that easy to solve. In the end, I had to accept his views and agree with him that his problem was indeed very hard to solve. The REAL problem of his problem was that he wasn't actually looking for a solution. He was only looking for more "reasons" to justify his belief that his problem was indeed a problem.

This reminded me of a story that I once heard from a motivational speaker.

There was this man who had a magical hunting dog, which could walk on water.

One day, he brought his magical hunting dog to show off to his friends during a duck hunting trip at a nearby lake. Every time he shot a duck, his magical hunting dog would walk effortlessly across the surface of the water to retrieve the duck, whereas his friends' hunting dogs could only swim slowly to retrieve the ducks.

After a while, this man was surprised that none of his friends had responded to the magical event. So he asked, "Hey guys, didn't you see that my hunting dog can walk on water? Isn't it special?"

One of his friends replied, "Oh really, but why didn't you teach your dog how to swim?"

 

The morale of this story: No matter how hard you try to convince people with the right facts and information, if the people are sceptical, they will still respond to you with scepticism.

If your focus is on the problem, what you'll find are more problems.

If your focus is on the solution, what you'll find are more solutions.

Therefore, if you find yourself still trapped in status quo after some time, you probably need to re-examine your thoughts and ask yourself this:

"What am I focus on?"