What you pay attention to every minute of each day determines the quality of your life. Whether it is words, the actions of others, the simple things, the negatives or the positives – they influence your beliefs, attitudes, decisions and behavior.
Last month I read a great book by, Mario Puig called Reinventing Yourself. (By the way I urge you to read it.) He covers a wide variety of mental issues that impact performance, health, attitudes and ultimate behavior. I won’t cover them all (impossible in this article) but I would like to share two of his key points regarding attention and awareness and their influence on our lives. (FYI – he is a well respected neurosurgeon and author at the Harvard Medical School.)
Attention – Have you ever considered how much happens during your typical day that you just don’t notice or pay attention to? Whether it’s the simple things like – a smile from a stranger to a near miss auto incident because you are so focused on your daily tasks, worries or personal needs or agendas. Or, it could even be major issues like signals that your mind or body are sending you that are trying to tell you to pay attention as these can be valuable observations that can prevent serious future consequences.
Why don’t we pay closer attention to the signals that life is sending us? Is it our need for control, ego, pride, arrogance or just total ignorance or some combination of these? Yes.
Life continuously sends us messages about all of life. How we are being received by others, what we need to learn, what really matters in life and how to live with increased success, happiness and contentment. But, if we fail to notice and honor many of these signals we are setting ourselves up for future negative consequences as one of life’s goals is to help us achieve and find inner peace and a sense of personal value.
Normally people only pay attention to life’s events or happenings when they are in crisis mode or the situation resonates with them due to their current worries, challenges or fears.
Ever made a bad decision? Ever made what you realized later was a mistake? Ever wished you could change something about your past? Come on – we have all done these but – could we have avoided some of the pain and struggle associated with them by paying better attention to the signals life was giving us? Yes. Maybe we would have still decided or acted the way we did, but at least we would have done it with a greater degree of knowledge about what we could be bringing into our life.
Attention is not that difficult to maintain. All that is involved is that we let go of our concern and worry about the future and attachment to the past. You might think this is difficult to do and yes it can be for many people but, if we can learn to just stay tuned in to what is happening now – around us and within us you would be amazed at how you can alter your present and future for the better.
Awareness – There are two types of awareness – what I refer to as casual awareness and focused awareness. Casual awareness is when something has caught your attention, but it for whatever reason does not seem to be of concern to you either as something you need to learn or something that could be a threat to you; emotionally, physically or mentally. It crosses your mind; you notice it, but dismiss it for whatever reason. On the other hand there is focused awareness and this is where the real value of this life approach can help you either in the present or the future.
Focused awareness can be a tremendous learning tool to improve some aspect of your life and circumstances. Let me give you a quick example.
You are reading a self help book and a sentence grabs your attention. Here’s one I caught last night. “Don’t let other people’s baggage become your destiny.” As I considered this simple sentence I began to think about all of the times in my life when I turned over my behavior to other people, even total strangers. I stopped reading and spent more time thinking about this phrase and my past, present and future. Every time I let other people’s behavior contribute to or even determine my behavior I experienced more stress. I thought about numerous examples.
My point is that this phrase caught my attention and I made a conscious choice to give it my full awareness. As a result this became an epiphany moment for me when I would make a serious change in my life. Ever had one of those moments? If not it may because you are not moving from attention to focused awareness. Just imagine what you could be missing in your life.
“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count.
It’s the life in your years.”
Abe Lincoln
In His Service, Tim