Foreground and Background

Everyday situations are complex, interweaving social relationships, physical context, and purposeful activity. What do you focus on when there is so much to attend to? You have choices: Sometimes the social reality jumps to the foreground: People and relationships become primary. At other times, the physical environment assumes first importance--natural landscapes, works of art, or physical hazards. Often, though, we focus neither on the social nor the material, but on the the purposeful activity set before us. Everything else--the social and material realities--becomes context that might aid or hinder our work. Any reality can generate positive or negative emotions, but social relationships are especially potent. Ideally, we go about our business within a background of positive human relationships. Yet, as we know, the human dimension can be suddenly and powerfully negative. Worse, it can emerge to the foreground and claim our most focused attention, draining energy from our work. When this happens, we do well to do whatever we can to make it positive again and to regain attention to our purpose.