Tell me what you see.

For many of you, if I asked you what you see in the picture above, you would probably say “a black dot” or “a circle”. Some of you are probably STILL looking at it in some sort of trance or something trying to figure out the meaning of life. For that, I’m sorry, that’s not it. Or is it? 🤔 My point is that most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, just see the dot. But let me ask you this. How many of you saw the white space around the dot? The rest of the paper. The “positive space” for you artsy ones. Probably only a few.

I recently read an article about this exact experiment. It carries some significance, because how many of us see our friends like this? Our families? Spouses? Strangers? We naturally are drawn to the negative in some people completely foregoing the enormous amount of good surrounding them. We base our judgement only on one, tiny, negative attribute they have, never even giving them a chance.

So today, I challenged myself to look for the white space and the areas around the dot. It’s amazing how much there is if you just look for it. For instance, today I opened up my phone and started to scroll through Facebook. Often times I get annoyed looking at Facebook because I feel it’s just full of negativity. However, today as I was scrolling I realized that 1/10 posts was political, negative or generally something I don’t care about. The other 9/10 was a picture of someone having a baby, another person just got married, someone else shared a picture of their coffee — preparing for their day. Another was a picture of my friends kid at his birthday party, meanwhile another friend celebrated her sisters success making DIY signs. So. Much. White Space. So much good.

In another example, I walked into the gym today. Then realized I forgot something in my car. The girl checking me in laughed as I said I would be back. Once I got back, a moment later I forgot something else! Walking out to my car she laughed again and the guy next to her chuckled and said, “at least you aren’t the guy who walked out with a dislocated shoulder a minute ago”. I suddenly thought, what a world we live in and what a culture we live in, where someone I don’t even know can in second nature bring positivity to light. In another example, I went to the gas station. I walked in, got my stuff, and went to check out. The guy says, “how’s your day?”, I responded, “great, how’s yours?” He helped me check out, and said “have a good day” and I said, “you too”. We do this every single day right? Because we were trained to be courteous by society and by our families. You might say, “well, nobody ever means it. It’s just the right thing to do.” But let’s look at the white space. We live in a culture that teaches these kinds of things. It is so second nature to many of us to be courteous, that we forget we live in an incredibly privileged and opportunistic society.

So here’s my point. We have to change our perspective. We have so many opportunities to appreciate the good in others and in the world. Yes, we are attracted by the negative. It calls us and taunts us to look at it. But remember, that we all have a choice to see what we want. Our reality is what we make it and if we choose to only to see the black dot, then we will miss out on so much more. Find some white space in someones life and make an intentional effort to lift them up and encourage them. You’ll be so much happier if you do.