Seeing vs. looking

There is a subtle but great difference between looking and seeing. It's a difference in mindset. When you are looking, you are projecting expectations onto a situation, in effect forcing yourself unnaturally down certain paths. And you are blinding yourself. Seeing, on the other hand, involves an openness of mind. You are aware of what is going on around you, you are open, without grafting preconceptions onto your surroundings.

It's like the book The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen. He searches for the extremely elusive snow leopard in the Himalayas, but he doesn't see it until he stops looking for it.

I like to run day game. And the other day I realized that, on that particular afternoon, I was looking for beautiful women; I was making my decisions about where to walk around based on where I thought the beautiful women would be; and I found not a single one. After realizing my wrongheadedness, though, I shifted my mindset and began seeing. I just went about my business and ran errands, open but not projecting. And, wouldn't you know it, I met and #-closed two gorgeous women.

When you catch yourself looking, switch your mindset. Strive to see.

I agree with your theory.

Cool, Brendan. Thanks for weighing in.

I think the idea is analogous to this: before calling a girl for the first time, I used to get myself all worked up, trying to think in advance of the "right things to say," trying to psych myself into being really focused on the phone. But all I was doing was making myself super-nervous and blocking myself from being in the moment during the call and from actually thinking. Then I realized that, before ringing a girl for the first time, I needed to just clear my mind. And I found that I felt and sounded much more natural on the phone, and I was able to think more clearly and both act and react more effectively.