This was certainly a simple task and it did not take long for me to quickly glance around and see how many children were wearing tennis shoes.

That simple task however got me to thinking that perhaps it would be good to observe that type of information even though my mother did not always ask me for that type of information. How many people were wearing tennis shoes? Doing that would give me practice in noticing what was different and what was the same in any situation -- probably a skill well worth developing. Here is a fundamental truth of life, learned without even knowing I was learning it.

She asked my older brother the same question.

He answered instantly and I realized that my brother already had the answer without looking around and counting.

My brother was always considered smarter than I was and I began to see that this might have something to do with the ability he had just demonstrated. I went up to him and asked him why he took the time and care to observe such things that would not seem to have any particular use in the situation. He told me that our mother had taught him the very high importance of developing your power of observation and that he routinely practiced observing many small details of any scene and often found that the information came in to be very useful.

He could, for instance, hear his father say that he needed a particular item "the next time he came to that spot . . ." He would have that statement of his father's so well "observed" that the next time he knew his father was going to that spot he would be sure to have that "item" available for his father.

Father would validate him for the cleverness of knowing what father wanted at this spot.

And, so it would be through life that a very high skill of "observation" would produce what some might call a miracle of knowing what people needed or wanted.

He also told me that many times mother would ask him about small details on some situation and find that his mother could instantly give him the correct answer if he happened to get the wrong answer. She was always observing and keeping track of differences and similarities.

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