They say some people never learn, but many do, acquiring the wisdom that only comes with age and experience.

The greatest lesson I learned was a simple one: Don't overlook the obvious.

Like many people, I've spent my whole life pursuing unreachable goals, exhausting the hard-earned money that goes along with it, until I learned: Goals must be reasonable and attainable.

It's not just in your mind. - Although a lot of it is. Lacking a sense of limitation, and even denying limitation, is a quick path to self-destruction, and in rare cases, glory.

The key is determining just how much our minds affect what we do. But maybe that's another story.

The main point I wanted to bring out in this article is we overlook many opportunities, and even the opportunities to solve our problems, by overlooking obvious things.

All of us being gifted with the best computers on the planet - our own brains - we're endelessly off to the wondrous exploration of endless possibilities. That's the miracle, and also the bane of the human brain. (That rhymes).

Often, we need to return to basics, and step back, and look at things from a different, more simple, perspective.

For example, just a small personal example: I lived in Japan for 25 years, and speak, read, and write the Japanese language fluently. For years, I tried to use this ability, but in the wrong ways.

Once I realized my true target market was the Japanese, in the United States - not American companies seeking to hire a Japanese-speaking American to develop business with Japanese in the United States or in Japan (although I once did that) - things changed dramatically. But that is yet another story. You can read some of it at http://www.japaneselv.com

To get back to the major gist, three things to ask yourself every day, particularly in the accomplishment of difficult duties:

1. What obvious solution might I be overlooking?
2. What are the obvious resources available to resolve the situation?
3. What obviously simple methods might I employ? Or, what skills or personal contacts do I have that might help?

If you ask yourself the simple question "Am I overlooking the obvious here?" every day, you'll see what I mean.

James B. Wilson is a writer, author and online news entrepreneur specializing in Japanese and English online news. http://vegasnews.squarespace.com