There is a moment in chess that feels almost embarrassing.
You’re focused. Deeply focused. You’ve been calculating lines, thinking ahead, maybe even feeling proud of your position… and then it happens.
You lose a piece.
And the thought comes immediately: Nooooo. How did I not see that???
Many times this was not because your opponent made a brilliant move, but because you simply didn’t see it.
I’ve had that moment more times than I’d like to admit. But recently, I realized something: this doesn’t only happen on the chessboard. It happens in life.
When I play chess, my attention tends to narrow. I focus on what I want to do—my strategy, my plan, my next move. But while I’m focused on that, I stop seeing everything else. Other pieces. Other threats. Other possibilities.
And then I get surprised.
Not because the information wasn’t there, but because I didn’t see it.
So I started asking myself a different question: What am I not seeing?
Something interesting began to happen after I started playing chess. That question didn’t stay on the board. It started appearing in my thoughts at random moments during the day—especially when I was making decisions. In conversations, at work, even in small everyday choices, I would suddenly pause and think: What am I not seeing? Almost as if chess had trained a new layer of awareness in my mind.
Life works in a similar way. We move forward with intention. We set goals, we make plans, we act with purpose. And yet, we still miss things. Signals from other people. Risks in our decisions. Opportunities outside our current focus. Patterns we repeat without noticing.
Just like in chess, the issue is not intelligence. It’s awareness.
We don’t see everything. We see what we are looking for.
That realization reminded me of Aristotle, who believed that understanding reality requires looking at it from multiple perspectives. But as humans, we naturally simplify. We narrow our field of vision to what feels most relevant in the moment.
In modern terms, we call this selective attention, tunnel vision or even cognitive bias. But on a more personal level, it simply feels like being certain… and still being wrong.
Chess, in that sense, becomes a practice in humility. It is not only about thinking ahead, but about learning to see the whole board. Stronger players develop a habit of pausing before they move. They ask themselves what changed, what is being threatened, which pieces are now vulnerable.
They train themselves to look beyond their intention.
This idea has started to change the way I make decisions in my own life. Now, when I feel certain, I try to pause. I ask myself what I might be missing, what assumptions I’m making, what could go wrong that I’m ignoring. I try to imagine what an outside perspective would notice that I cannot see from where I stand.
Sometimes, nothing changes. But sometimes, everything does.
It is not about overthinking or doubting every step. It is about expanding awareness, even slightly, to include what is outside of our immediate focus.
Chess humbled me in a way I didn’t expect. It showed me that even when I feel focused, capable, and in control, I can still miss what is right in front of me.
And maybe the goal is not to see everything. That would be impossible.
Maybe the goal is simply to stay curious enough to keep asking:
What am I not seeing?
Arabela Navarro 