Russell H Conwell, in his famous lecture entitled Acres of Diamonds, tells the story of a Pennsylvania farmer who became obsessed with oil exploration, then sold his farm and went off to Canada to prospect for it. However, the man who purchased his farm one day noticed there was a foul scum on the surface of the brook where the cattle drank, and where the previous owner had placed a plank to keep it from spreading. The new owner looked at it, tasted it and then called in some geologists who told him it was coal oil. That farm became America’s first ever oil field and made a fortune. But the previous owner, who was obsessed about finding oil, had been damming it up for years.
It illustrates that tendency we all have to miss the things we want most, even when we already have them.