Where is Your Focus?

The Tale of Two Cities

A man was walking down a long and dusty road. He had been travelling for days.
He came across an old women sitting near the side of the road just outside of an upcoming town.
He asked her "What is the city ahead like? Are the people there nice?"

The old women asked "What was it like where you came from?"
He said "It was beautiful and clean and the people were great"
"So shall you find the city ahead." the old woman responded.
Happily the traveler went along.

A while later another lone traveler on the same road approached the same woman and asked her, "What is the city ahead like? Are the people there nice?"
The old women asked "What was it like where you came from?"
"It was despicable, dirty and ugly and the people where horrid!" exclaimed the traveler.
"So shall you find the city ahead." the old woman responded

Author Unknown

Do you ever wonder why 2 people can have such different perspectives about the same situation? What makes one person see all the good and positive, while the other person only seems to be able focus on the negative and the bad? What causes this difference?

Zen teacher, Cheri Huber has a wonderful saying that goes, “The quality of your life is determined by the focus of your attention.

That means if we focus our attention on all the things that are wrong, then that is all we are going to see; and we will come to believe that world as a bad, dangerous and ugly place in which to live. Once we have that belief we will continue to find bad things to validate our story.

On the other hand, if we focus our attention on the good things, the things that are working, our perspective of the world will be entirely different. We will see it as a friendly and beautiful place and we will focus our attention on finding more good and beautiful things to validate our belief.

Where do you want to focus your attention?

Man is what he believes. - Anton Checkov