focus on what you want to see more of

Credit to NameRedacted for this refrain https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1324978566455468035/retweets/with_comments

It's a powerful take on the importance of attention.

I already accept this pretty deeply in physical, intuitive contexts. I learned that when driving a car one should "look where you want to go". If you look at the telephone pole on the side of the road, subconsciously you will tend to steer towards it. But if you look at the open road as it curves ahead of you, you'll tend to steer to stay on the road.

The same applies to kicking a soccer ball. You always want to look forward at where you want the ball to go, whether that's into the goal, or towards a teammate ready to receive the pass. There's a temptation to look at the ball itself, but you really have to trust that your foot will find the ball on its own. You might also be drawn to look at the defender coming towards you, but it's better to look at the space around the defender, towards wherever you're trying to get the ball to.

Visa's insight is that this law is really more fundamental; it applies to almost everything in life. The only way to generate more of something is to focus on it. And focus is to a large extent zero-sum.

Worrying about what I don't want to become is a trap. It feels productive. But it generates only the tension of avoidance, not the flow of rightness. A list of things to avoid turns your mental landscape into a mindfield. Thoughts of the form "most people are like X, but I don't want to be most people" , for various values of X (non-player character, judgemental, reactive, ??) can be well-intentioned and even insightful, but they're rarely generative of positive change.This point itself is an example of focusing on something I want to avoid, which itself should be avoided! And this footnote noting that is even more avoidance! A wiser me would be writing this article about the mental moves I do want to encourage. Passion is a much better motivator than self-judgement.

Information-theoretically, learning from success is better than failure, because there are a million ways to fail at any given goal, and a much narrower set of ways to succeed.It is still the case that there are many valid goals, many ways to succeed, and that every branch has high-value leaves. There is almost always a good turn available to us, but identifying and pursuing it will require a positive vision, not just a fear of failure. Reward in the real world is sparse; knowing what not to do doesn't tell you what to do. This is why most learning is by demonstration: a single mentor who can demonstrate a working tapestry of skills is more valuable than a thousand cautionary examples.

Interpersonal relationships also benefit from focusing on what you like about the other person. It's easy to react to the ways in which someone is failing, being hurtful or annoying (and of course it can be necessary and even kind to impose consequences for genuine transgressions, and to take care of ourselves first since you are the sum of the people you spend time around, especially when young and still developing a mature sense of self with robust boundaries). But we should always remember that they themselves are, like all of us, conflicted and confused. Helping other people see a path towards growth and connectedness is sometimes the biggest gift we can give them. As Carolyn Hax advises the mother of an annoying teenage son,

The easiest path to giving him the approval and presence he wants — without getting up in his grill — is to look for and appreciate the person he is growing into. The surly stuff isn’t everything. There’s an interesting person developing in there. The cute-caterpillar stage was always going to be temporary. Make it your mission right now to be the person who sees the first vague outlines of the butterfly, and delights in them.