Two friends went for a walk down by the lake. The first friend was soaking in the scent of the beautiful flowers along the path while watching the bees buzzing around the flowers to pollinate. There was a gentle, calming breeze that lightly brushed the skin on their faces, making the first friend pausing to breathe in the moment and enjoy the sensation. The sun began to set causing a reflection so stunning it made the first friend gasp in excitement.

The second friend, however, saw none of this. They were focused on swatting the mosquitos that kept buzzing around their ears. The breeze that felt calming to the first friend was irritating the second friend because it was blowing hair in their eyes. They were also so hot they kept complaining they couldn’t relax to enjoy the sunset as the first friend was doing. They had a pain in their foot from tripping over a root sticking up and their focus was on going home to relax in front of a movie.

“It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy.” – Unknown

Two friends. Same situation. Completely different experiences. Why? Because their attention was focused on two totally different aspects of the same setting. At any given moment we are bombarded with millions, if not billions, of pieces of information, some positive, some negative. There is no way for our brains to grasp that much information, it only has the capacity to focus on just a few things at a time, so it focuses on what we have trained it to look for.

Our minds naturally look for negative things because we are hardwired to search for possible threats or danger. But there isn’t always danger looming over us, and yet we will still be drawn to the negative because each time we look for something we are creating deep grooves, or pathways in the brain to keep following that same pattern. The more we look for the negative, the more we will find it because there is always going to be a positive and negative to every situation.

“A positive mind doesn’t pretend everything is always perfect, it simply looks for something positive in every situation.” – Unknown

In some cultures they can’t see the color blue and don’t even have a word for it because they never trained their eyes to see it and recognize it. It can be the same with looking for the positive aspect of things. Have you ever met someone who is just completely negative about everything? Its because that’s the patterns they’ve built over the years and might not even be capable of seeing the positive anymore with out some serious effort to overcome their negative patterns.

It takes effort to switch gears and try to find the positive in each situation, but the more you do, the more you will start to see the positives. The more you practice this, the deeper the pathways will become until it’s second nature to start looking for the positive and you will begin to see it all around you.

Start by thinking of something you are grateful for. Thinking of three new things to be grateful for everyday begins the rewiring of the brain to begin scanning for positive things. You can definitely do more than three, and as time goes on it will naturally flow to more, but start small so you aren’t overwhelmed. Make it a habit to be grateful on a daily basis and it will change your life for the better.