Seeing Things that Have Always Been There

Five days a week, 50 weeks a year, for 3 years, I have walked out of the same building, gotten into my car, and driven out of the same parking lot to the street beyond.  I see the same cars parked in the spaces as I go by, the same office buildings, and the same trees and shrubs every day.  I barely glance at them anymore since they are so familiar.

So why, one day last week, did I happen to see something across the street–in a direction that I face n the same route day in and day out–that I think I have never seen before? And why did it change my view of life?

Let me explain why this is so profound.  It wasn’t a gaggle of geese, or a broken down Ford, or a blinking road construction sign.

This was an enormous white structure, ninety feet high, spanning 30 acres; a crosshatching of strong white bars that resembled a skeleton from a Tim Burton movie.  No doubt it was some sort of electric plant, but what it was really doesn’t matter.  It’s the fact that I’d never noticed it before.  Perhaps they had been putting it up slowly, I thought, and the structure finally broke the horizon?  Well, after a closer look, the joints were rusting and there was a good layer of aged brown dirt on the thing, so I ruled that out.

That disturbed me.  How could I have missed such a looming structure that was clearly in plain view to me every day for a significant amount of time?

It boils down to this:  I had never focused on it before. And just like a library book whose spine jumps out at you as you walk past it in the library, this structure stood out for me on that particular day because I decided to focus upon it.

I equate this occurrence to many I’ve experienced in other areas of my life:

Facing a challenge with an attitude different from the one I had last time I was presented with that same challenge.
Noticing the beautiful blue eyes in a coworker that I’ve known for years but never bothered to study before.
The markings on my cat’s back that suddenly form the shape of a heart.
The white flowers on a cactus that probably blooms quite the same way every spring.

So if you see something unusual in a usual situation, take the time to view it differently, and notice how your vision expands.  It might just change your view of the whole world as you used to see it.

Beautiful.