The Focus

One morning, Professor Fredrick was reading a newspaper and became very sad after reading that a man in his town committed suicide due to his failure in getting any job. He started thinking that this is really a serious issue. People commit suicide just because of one failure. Thinking about that, he looked at the clock and said, “Oh, I will get late for the collage” and left his house after getting ready.

When he entered in his class, he asked his students to prepare for a surprise test. They all waited anxiously at their desks for the exam to begin. When professor distributed all the papers, he told all students to start writing. But, everyone was looking at his face surprisingly. The reason was that there was no any question on the paper. There was only a black dot in the centre of the paper. The professor, seeing the expression on everyone’s face, told them the following, “I want you to write you about what you see there.” All the confused students started writing.

At the end of the exam, he collected all the answer sheets and started reading each one of them loudly in front of all the students. With no exception, all of them had defined the black dot, trying to explain about its position on the paper, trying to give mathematical definitions of a dot.

After reading all the answer sheets, the professor said, “I am not going to grade you for this. I just wanted to give you something to think about. No one focused on the white part of the paper, which is present in more amount. Everyone focused on the single black dot. And that is what happens in our lives also. We focus only on the black dot present in our lives – the lack of money, the health condition that bother us, complicated relationship with our family member, lack of job etc. The dark spots are very small when compared to everything we have in our lives. But they are the ones that pollute our mind. So, we should move our eyes away from black dots of our lives and enjoy each one of our blessings, enjoy every moment that life gives us, be happy and live a life filled with love.”

After listening to the professor, the students realised what he wanted to tell them.