I miss old cars and pickup trucks. Ones with standard transmissions and no power steering or power brakes. I liked shifting gears and driving in the gear I wanted, not what an automatic transmission decided was best for me. Those vehicles let me control them, not them control me. Some new cars now do all the driving for a person. You can type into the computer where you want to go and then sit back and the car does everything. They are potentially safer, but I would have a difficult time sitting back watching a movie while the car cruises down a highway at 70 miles an hour. Younger people may relish that idea and the cars are technological marvels. They can even park themselves.
I watch probably too many videos on YouTube these days, but I feel like I am learning things on a plethora of subjects. Some discussions are about distractions in our lives and how they affect us.
Children are born with tremendous focus, which is good. They are not concerned about the stock market, making the house payment, getting to work on time or even worrying about having a job, worrying about getting sick, worrying about finding a new date or a new mate, getting an “A” in school or passing a test at all. A child can stay focused on watching a new bug they have never seen before or finger painting (sometimes with chocolate pudding on mom’s kitchen wall). Little ones are fascinated with dropping food off their highchair and watching it hit the floor or feeding food to the family dog.
It has become obvious to me that we have become a nation of distracted individuals. Our monkey minds dance back and forth constantly and uncontrollably. I include myself in that statement. We think we are doing well with our multi-tasking when scientific studies have proved that multitasking does not help us complete things faster, in fact just the opposite happens. We make more mistakes when multitasking. I have discovered that when I do that very thing I end up not knowing what I have done in either function.
We do our best when we do one thing at a time, if we live in the moment and not worrying about next week or what could happen next month or how we screwed up last week.
We are so accustomed to our new life (again me included) that it is difficult to change back to what we should be doing. I am working on that, through yoga and meditation. Try meditation, just focusing on your awareness and breathing without distracting thoughts, fears or worries about tomorrow. It is not easy at all. Consider this, we started training (though we did not realize it) about the time we hit puberty. Then it was a constant concern about do my friends like me? Can I pass that math exam? Does Sally like me or does she like Jim? Will people laugh at me if I do anything other than follow the herd? In my case at 75 years-old, I have a lot of work to try and go back to where I once was, concentrating on one thing at a time and happy as could be when I was focused instead of distracted.
I watch probably too many videos on YouTube these days, but I feel like I am learning things on a plethora of subjects. Some discussions are about distractions in our lives and how they affect us.
Children are born with tremendous focus, which is good. They are not concerned about the stock market, making the house payment, getting to work on time or even worrying about having a job, worrying about getting sick, worrying about finding a new date or a new mate, getting an “A” in school or passing a test at all. A child can stay focused on watching a new bug they have never seen before or finger painting (sometimes with chocolate pudding on mom’s kitchen wall). Little ones are fascinated with dropping food off their highchair and watching it hit the floor or feeding food to the family dog.
It has become obvious to me that we have become a nation of distracted individuals. Our monkey minds dance back and forth constantly and uncontrollably. I include myself in that statement. We think we are doing well with our multi-tasking when scientific studies have proved that multitasking does not help us complete things faster, in fact just the opposite happens. We make more mistakes when multitasking. I have discovered that when I do that very thing I end up not knowing what I have done in either function.
We do our best when we do one thing at a time, if we live in the moment and not worrying about next week or what could happen next month or how we screwed up last week.
We are so accustomed to our new life (again me included) that it is difficult to change back to what we should be doing. I am working on that, through yoga and meditation. Try meditation, just focusing on your awareness and breathing without distracting thoughts, fears or worries about tomorrow. It is not easy at all. Consider this, we started training (though we did not realize it) about the time we hit puberty. Then it was a constant concern about do my friends like me? Can I pass that math exam? Does Sally like me or does she like Jim? Will people laugh at me if I do anything other than follow the herd? In my case at 75 years-old, I have a lot of work to try and go back to where I once was, concentrating on one thing at a time and happy as could be when I was focused instead of distracted.
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