Find Rest: A Women's Plan For Lasting Peace In A Busy LifeSample

What You Focus On Is What You See

In the classic “Invisible Gorilla” experiment video, created by Harvard University in 1999, six people in black and white shirts pass basketballs back and forth. A voice asks the viewer to count how many times the people in white shirts pass the basketball. 

Simple, right? 

Half of those who watch the video miss something very, very obvious—a gorilla. Yes, someone in a gorilla suit actually walks through the basketball passers, very clearly faces the camera and thumps his chest, and then walks offscreen. Half of us are so busy counting the passes between the white-shirted people that we never even notice it. When the video asks, “Did you see the gorilla?” we think, Wait, what gorilla?! 

What we focus on will change what we observe around us. We will notice more and more of what we focus on or, conversely, less and less of what we don’t want to see. 

In the research for my book The Kindness Challenge, I found that this is one of the main reasons for the unneeded stress in our lives, and one of the God-given ways to overcome it. As we focus on the things that annoy or anger us, well, you guessed it, we often completely miss some good and wonderful stuff that could change how we feel. We miss the gorilla! So often, when we are worried about our struggling marriage, frustrations with an adult child, a roommate’s messiness, or our mean coworker, that negative thing looms large in our eyes. We think about it, ponder it, express frustration about it. And we never even see the other spectacular things going on around us. 

Yet, as we focus on “whatever is lovely”—those good and true things we like and appreciate—we’ll find ourselves noticing those things more often. And as we do, our negative concerns won’t loom as large. 

Suppose that instead of asking why your husband loaded the dishwasher that way (again!), you give him a hug and thank him for cleaning up the kitchen. What will happen to your feelings? You’ll feel better! And as you look for the next thing to praise . . . and the next . . . you’ll find that you don’t really even notice what annoyed you so much before. Instead, you’ll start noticing everything you can be grateful for. 

It’s a shift in focus that God asks us to make because He knows it delivers a big impact.

Shift Your Perspective