500 Words a Week - Our One True Resource

I’ve been listening to a lot of Sam Harris recently through various podcasts and via his Waking Up app. A comment he made on a few podcasts and through his app was around our one true resource. Surprisingly, it’s not time like we have heard repeated to us so many times before. It’s our attention. Sam makes some strong points around this concept, which resonate with me and I’m sure it will with others.

Have you ever planned elements of your day to make sure you make the most of you time? Then, in doing one of the activities you have planned, you’ve noticed your mind is just completely elsewhere? It’s replaying a conversation at work, it’s over analysing whether how you decided to spend your time was the right way? It’s stuck ruminating on the past, or endlessly worrying over the future. These endless questions and thoughts, running on repeat are taking you away from enjoying how you decided to spend your time. These endless questions are stealing your attention. Therefore, no matter what you do, you can’t fully enjoy the moment.

Attempting to control or shift our attention, ultimately shifts our mood.

"Our attention is like water, and with it, we can choose to water the flowers or the weeds of our experience." — John Bruna

We can look to keep replaying the negative moments or look to water the good.

For me, the biggest thing with attention is trying to develop the ability to catch ourselves when we are trapped in that cycle of thoughts listed above. I’m an over-analyser, always re-thinking the minute things that have happened and wondering if I could have done them better or said something in a different way. This ultimately causes my attention to be elsewhere at times, as above, either ruminating on the past or worrying about the future, paying no attention to the present.

Something that doesn’t help is the attention economy we find ourselves living in at the moment. Referring to the fact that “the modern economy increasingly revolves around the human attention span and how products capture that attention.” Apps and streaming sites are battling for your attention, and if we aren’t aware of this and where our attention is we can find ourselves spending increasing amounts of time on these services.

“How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives.” – Sam Harris