{"id":36625,"date":"2026-07-25T21:15:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T01:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/?p=36625"},"modified":"2026-07-25T21:15:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T01:15:26","slug":"frequency-illusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/frequency-illusion\/","title":{"rendered":"FREQUENCY ILLUSION"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have you ever noticed that when you buy a new car, you suddenly start seeing that same model everywhere? Buy a Volkswagen, and it seems like they&#8217;re on every street. The truth is, they were always there\u2014you just never noticed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think the same thing can happen with people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After taking a short walk today, it hit me that I&#8217;ve been noticing a lot of genuinely good people. People holding doors, smiling at strangers, showing patience, offering a helping hand, or simply being kind without expecting anything in return.&nbsp; Similar encounters where my schedule takes me on my errands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe the world has always been full of good people. Maybe what changes isn&#8217;t the world&#8230; it&#8217;s what we choose to look for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we start looking for goodness, we begin to see it everywhere. And the beautiful part is, that kind of focus has a way of changing us too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What have you been noticing more of lately?&nbsp; &nbsp;Do you think that if we can slide our bar further towards the good zone, then that creates a opening for others to present themselves into our lives?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yes, this is called the <mark><strong>Baader-Meinhof phenomenon<\/strong><\/mark>, which is also widely known as <strong>frequency illusion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This psychological effect occurs when something you recently noticed, experienced, or learned suddenly seems to appear everywhere in your daily life. It is actually a combination of two cognitive processes: <strong>selective attention<\/strong> (your brain subconsciously starts looking for the car because it is fresh in your mind) and <strong>confirmation bias<\/strong> (your brain registers every time you see the car as proof that it is appearing more often, while ignoring all the other types of cars).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"572\" src=\"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/frequency-illusion-1024x572.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36627\" srcset=\"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/frequency-illusion-1024x572.png 1024w, https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/frequency-illusion-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/frequency-illusion-768x429.png 768w, https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/frequency-illusion.png 1376w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever noticed that when you buy a new car, you suddenly start seeing that same model everywhere? Buy a Volkswagen, and it seems like they&#8217;re on every street. The truth is, they were always there\u2014you just never noticed them. I think the same thing can happen with people. After taking a short walk [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-dose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36631,"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36625\/revisions\/36631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelagee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}