Sometimes, it pays to get focused (Nov. 2)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
Maybe there would be something to be said for more of us wearing blinders.
Actually, blinders is a poor term. In the days when horses were the chief means of mobility besides our feet, blinders were used not to blind the horses, but to focus their attention.
Horses’ eyes are set up to expand rather than limit perception. That was good for the horse. If you were a horse clopping along, and a mountain lion showed up on your left or right, expanded perception would have helped you defend yourself.
When horses became pullers of wagons and chariots, however, things changed. The driver wanted the horse to focus on the road in front of it, not on other things it might see in its peripheral vision. The driver would assume responsibility for keeping the horse out of trouble.
Horses aren’t the only creatures whose performances can be improved through the use of blinders — or of focusers, if you will. Focusing on a goal, for example, can help one toward success.
A good example of this is how the Internet has evolved over the 40 years since it was first introduced to the general public in 1969 at UCLA, which hosted the Internet’s first public switchboard. The result of the first Internet message was — surprise — a computer crash.
In its first years, it was basically a way for technologists at universities, big business and government agencies to communicate using their computers, largely for research.
But many smart engineers remained focused on introducing the Internet to the public. These people tuned out the buzz of the time, which was that the applications of the Internet were too technologically difficult and expensive to interest the average person.
Their focus paid off, the result being the Internet of today, which is now so populated with wild advertising, spam and entertainment that it requires great focus just to use it for research. What goes around comes around.
