we can make ourselves miserable seeing only what we think we are supposed to see

"What confuses the brain delights the brain. What confounds the brain enlivens the brain. What mixes up categories energizes the brain. Or to sum it all up, as we have seen, what surprises the brain is what allows for learning. Incongruity, disruption, and disorientation may well turn out to be the most inspiring, creative, and productive forces one can add to the workplace.
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“surprise is an adaptive strategy for the brain, indicating a gap in our knowledge of the world. Things are surprising only if we failed to predict them. Surprise gives us an opportunity to improve our brain’s predictive system.”
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Whatever you see means there is something you do not see.  (Moi ici: Lembro-me logo do truque para fugir da atracção para o abismo dos feedback-loops daqui) And then you are startled or distracted, lost or simply out for an adventure, and you see something else. If you are lucky, everything changes, in a good way. But the key factor here is that “everything changes” has more to do with the way you see than with what exists.

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IF I WERE TO DISTILL one simple lesson from all the science and all the stories in this book, it would be that with the right practice and the right tools, we can begin to see what we’ve been missing. With the right tools and the right people to share them with, we have new options. From infancy on, we are learning what to pay attention to, what to value, what is important, what counts. Whether on the largest level of our institutions or the most immediate level of concentrating on the task before us, whether in the classroom or at work or in our sense of ourselves as human beings, what we value and what we pay attention to can blind us to everything else we could be seeing. The fact that we don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Why is this important? Because sometimes we can make ourselves miserable seeing only what we think we are supposed to see." (Moi ici: aplicável a isto)

Trechos retirados de "Now you see it : how the brain science of attention will transform the way we live, work and learn" de Cathy N. Davidson.