Oblivious

Read the next sentence at your normal reading speed and read it only once counting the number of f’s in it:  Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of the years.  Now, without looking back, how many f’s did you count?

Seventy percent of smart people who follow instructions (did you follow instructions?) see three f’s at first count.  Actually there are six.

Most people who miss the f’s miss them in the little preposition ‘of’ –a word so common and seemingly unimportant that our eye just skips over it.


How often does being oblivious to the common or seemingly unimportant keep us from seeing something right in front of us that may be a clue to some human need that we could help resolve? 

In our lives are people who we may encounter or interact with some regularity such as people we work with, or people whose services we rely on, or even close friends or family members who may have needs or wants or feelings that reveal themselves if we were only more observant—if we were only looking. 
 

Too often, though, we only become aware when the person blows up, walks out, hurts themselves, or experiences some disaster that might have been delayed, avoided, or resolved at an earlier, lower level.  These people, more often than not, have become invisible to us (like the letter ‘f’) because we were too familiar with them on the surface or took them too much for granted, or couldn’t ‘see’ them because we were too busy looking at ourselves.  Moreover, because things (growth or decay) usually happen gradually we miss the change because of the process of time.  We didn’t experience these people deeply enough, in the early stages, to make a difference. 

We must all admit there are people all around us who are in the sphere of our influence and with whom we could make a difference, but who we may become oblivious to, like those who Jesus called “the least among us.” They may be, as the boy I saw depicted in an old short film, “Cipher in the Snow,” or the young black man in Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man (1952).

             

 Much of the heartache suffered by others—which ultimately causes our heart to ache as well—could be avoided and lives enriched—if we took more of a proactive and caring attitude toward them.  To do that we need to be looking, sensing, listening, understanding and, for some of us, being much, much more kind.