FREQUENCY ILLUSION
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’re on every street. The truth is, they were always there—you just never noticed them.
I think the same thing can happen with people.
After taking a short walk today, it hit me that I’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. Similar encounters where my schedule takes me on my errands.
Maybe the world has always been full of good people. Maybe what changes isn’t the world… it’s what we choose to look for.
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.
What have you been noticing more of lately? 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?
Yes, this is called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, which is also widely known as frequency illusion.
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: selective attention (your brain subconsciously starts looking for the car because it is fresh in your mind) and confirmation bias (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).
