what are you looking at/for?

My A-Level English lecturer Ms. Kiranjeet Kaur Dhillon taught us this: skimming and scanning.
They are important skills to master. The benefit is that you can save time going through a long article that you have to read.
What you should do first is to skim through the paragraphs. Go through them quickly, to grasp the essence of the article throughout.
Next, you go a bit more detail - scanning. Here, you scan through the article to get detail information that you need in order to understand it in full.

I tried to do this with technical/engineering articles - not much of a success. Especially on codes, standars and regulations. Very much because as if they are written by lawyers. Duhh!!

Anyway, I always apply those skills in life - in general.

Generally, what Ms. Dhillon taught us was really basic: "while skimming and scanning, your mind will only look for things that you want".
In life, it is really true. We would only find things that we want to look at/for.
My life in its stages, have gone through many wants and focuses.
I wanted to marry my girl, so I did.
I wanted to go to university, so I went.
I wanted a set of hi-fi separates, so I had.
I didn't really want to go through Europe, so it didn't happen.
I wanted a job in Malaysia, so I went back home and got one.
And now I'm into mountain biking, so that's my focus.
Hence, my current cross-stitch project is just a whenever-i-have-time-besides-mountain-biking hobby.

Mr. Robbins, Hill, Covey and Ms. Dhillon said just the basic idea of life - focus on what you want.
You'll eventually get it.

But most of all, Rasulullah Muhammad (pbuh) said about it much, much earlier:
'Innamal a'malu bin niyyat'
Whatever you're doing, it starts with a niyyat.
A niyyat is a broad term encompassing 'want', 'desire', and a whole lot big words.

What are we looking for?
Remember to have our niyyat - good and noble ones, so that our time and energy spent looking for it are worth it.