Chameleon changes its body color to camouflage from its prey. It becomes what the surrounding is or what it gives attention to. I always wonder what if we have the same power. Would it not be cool to be like a chameleon?
After reading the article by Darren Hardy, I realize that we are born chameleon without knowing our power within. The most important choice that we exercise everyday is “our choice to give our attention”. Yet we think so less about how we exercise that choice.
We become what we give our most attention to. Everyday, we are bombarded with tons of information from TV, Internet, book, friends, and work. Phrase like “Economy is bad”, “no job”, “so much corruption”, “X has bad attitude”, and “Y is hard to work with” are norm in daily life now. There is no end in constant complains, ineptness, and difficulties. I am guilty of doing the same mistake to some extent.
We are trapped in misery when we start giving our full attention to difficulties. Our thought becomes negative and it reflects in our action. Our action starts shaping up our personality and character. Eventually, our success and happiness become illusive.
Good things are always around only if we are watching carefully. Some of my friends are getting good jobs, professors are getting tenures and awards, unknown people are making inspirational success stories everyday. Endless opportunity and good things are always presented themselves. It is almost impossible to take advantage of the opportunity if our attention is always focused on only obstacles in our path.
We become part of the solution when we give our attention to the way to solve a problem. We have a goal to achieve, a life to live and a world to contribute. That should take all our attention. And we shall overcome each difficulty in our way to success and happiness.
What are you giving attention to and what are you not? I like to know how are you doing it. Please share your suggestions.
Step 2 more 
When i was younger ( high school and early years of college ) i used to give a lot of attention to negative talks and things. And that pulled me down a lot. After some time i made a decision to try and stay positive and also not to exaggerate when i talk and refrain from making sided comments about things i know little of. And i saw a lot of improvement in a lot of aspects of my daily life. After the first year of grad school though , i have been finding myself increasingly giving attention to negative things and thus i need to start looking at myself again and stay positive. It’s easy to echo what other people say and be negative but has all the mentioned bad consequences. So i would have to start to take more positive steps. Nice article Sanjay !
Tesfa,
Thanks for the comments and sharing your personal experience. You will be amazed how many of us has gone through same phase and yet, still doing the same even after knowing the long term damage to our chance of getting success.
sanjay
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