Shift your Focus

One day, a professor walked into his classroom and told his students there would be a surprise test. They shifted anxiously in their seats, waiting for him to hand out the papers. But when they turned them over, confusion filled the room. There were no questions, no problems to solve, no equations to work through, just a blank sheet of paper with a single black dot in the center. The professor studied their puzzled faces and said, write about what you see. So, they did. Some described its size, some explained its position, some theorized about why it was there.

But at the end of class, when the professor collected the papers and read them aloud, something became clear. Every single student had written about the black dot. Not one of them mentioned the white space surrounding it. The professor smiled and said, “This is exactly how we live our lives. We focus only on the black dot, the things that bother us, the mistakes we’ve made, the problems we face, but we completely ignore the vast open space of blessings that surround it.”

That’s the lesson. Think about it. How often do we fixate on what’s wrong instead of everything that’s right? We stress over the money we don’t have instead of appreciating what we do have. We dwell on disappointments instead of cherishing the people who stand by us. We let one bad moment ruin an entire day, forgetting all the good ones that came before it. But life? Life isn’t just a black dot. It’s a whole sheet of possibilities, opportunities, and blessings. Yes, there will be dark spots, challenges, heartbreaks, struggles. But if all you ever see is the black dot, you’ll miss out on everything else. The laughter, the love, the second chances, the new beginnings.

So today, take a step back. Shift your focus. Stop staring at the dot and start seeing the bigger picture. Because life isn’t meant to be lived in the shadows of what’s wrong, it’s meant to be lived in the light of what’s right. Alright, go out there and make today yours.

“Learn to see the big picture. Often times we get tunnel vision and lose sight of the big picture and what we’re really trying to accomplish.”
-Robert Cheeke