Focus and Filter

"Never underestimate the power of a story to change someone's life." -- Unknown

Last week I read a post containing poignant allegory about a man and his watch. Without going into detail about the story, the salient point that resonated with me was the concept of knowing one’s own value. The message was timely, and the point was well-taken – and as evidenced by the majority of the comments posted, there were numerous people who needed to hear that message. 

However, as is always the case when someone posts an opinion or a story, there were several detractors on whom the message was either lost or was of secondary importance. To many of these critics what was most important was the veracity of the story – whether the watch or the characters were real, or if the poster borrowed the story from a movie without attributing proper credit. There were also comments about whether the post belonged in that forum or was better suited for Facebook. Fortunately, the supporters of the story far outnumbered the detractors, but I read through enough “vocal” criticisms (something I try to avoid doing) that forced me to pause and reflect on my own thoughts and opinions I develop in response to the endless content posted on the internet.

In this age of “fake news”, inaccurate stories, and manipulated pictures, it’s understandably easy to get caught up in fact-checking – and I don’t discourage the search for the truth. However, there are often valuable lessons we miss in our efforts to refute a story, as we begin conflating the story with the message -- wholly dismissing a story simply because it is (or we believe it to be) false or from dubious sources. Nuggets of wisdom are often buried in the rubble, disguised by the unpleasant, and blended with the counterfeit. But in our eagerness to be correct, to point out another’s flaws and to shoot the messenger – many of these nuggets remain unearthed because we’re looking for the wrong treasure. 

We willingly consume incessant content that’s disseminated to the public – articles, posts and their replies, commercials, etc. – all designed to provoke responses from consumers. Given the number of outlets that exist and their “always on” nature, we’re bound to see something we’ve seen countless times before. Yet we often find ourselves criticizing it because we feel it’s repetitive and unnecessary. But what we forget is that not every ad, article, movie, book, or song is meant for everyone. Content is produced with a target audience in mind – whether consciously or subconsciously. Not all of it will resonate with you, and that’s ok. It just means you’re not the target audience at that moment in time, and it’s up to us to filter out what we don’t need or want and use the rest.

So, before fact-checking ourselves into entirely dismissing the next bogus story; before we groan about the 100th time we’ve seen a commercial or heard a song – let’s focus on what message or nugget of wisdom we can uncover, filter out the rest as passing noise, and allow others their own discovery of what resonates with them.