Seeing/not seeing

Yesterday I was preparing dinner and began searching for the vegetable peeler. I knew what I was looking for: green plastic handle that splits to hold a peeling blade horizontally. I bought it at William Sonoma years ago, and it makes quick work of peeling a potato. I dug around in the kitchen drawer for several minutes and couldn't find it.

Only when I went into another room to get something did I remember that we had lost that peeler long ago and a while back I bought a new vegetable peeler. This one, from Bed, Bath, & Beyond, has a bulbous orange plastic handle and the peeler blade extends vertically from the base. It also is effective, but looks very different.

The interesting thing to me is that once I had the right picture in my head, I located the peeler in the drawer immediately.

My initial wrong expectation (green gadget) kept me from finding what I was seeking (orange gadget). I'm sure my eyes saw the orange handled peeler in the drawer, but the message never made it past my "expectation filter" to my brain.

This has happened to me before.

Arriving at the airport from out of town, I was expecting my husband to pick me up outside baggage claim. I was looking for his large SUV. I was positioned to see vehicles approaching from a great distance. He came into view and drove to the curb beside me before I recognized him -- because he was driving my little four-door car. Even though I am intimately familiar with my own car, it wasn't what I expected to see. My mental filter rejected it, failing to recognize my ride home.

One more example: several years ago I was shopping for groceries, looking for a bag of fritoes. I went up and down the chips aisle several times, unable to find the corn chips I wanted. Finally, after much frustration, I began examining closely each bag of chips. Only then, did I find the fritoes I wanted -- in newly redesigned packaging. It wasn't what I had expected to see. (Which calls for a different post on the importance of consistency in brand identity!)

In each of these examples, my expectations kept me from seeing reality. My physical ability to see was fine, but my mental filters sorted out any information that did not match my expectations. In each case, I thought I KNEW what I was looking for!

Now . . . . not spotting a vegetable peeler is no big deal.

But I wonder if I suffer from this same sort of blindness in other situations -- more important situations.

Wonder how often my expectations cause me to fail to see the reality about the people and circumstances around me? Wonder if it is possible to disable or override those filters?