A Year of Paying Attention

Facebook header based on wall art in San Miguel de Allende

Focus on this bright, shiny new year called 2015 has been slow in coming. Today is the 19th day of the year and I’ve been distracted by endings and uncertainty. I feel like I’m already “late” since I haven’t taken time to contemplate the coming year, haven't begun my journal for the year or even chosen my word for this year.  However, this morning I was thinking about how we learn and came across this line about attention.

Often, the main reason we don't learn something or remember it well is because we weren't paying attention in the first place.

It struck me that maybe my “year of …” wasn’t about doing something but about being something … being more aware and attentive, truly noticing the world around me and my engagement with and within it.

What would paying more attention look like? Fortunately, the guru-at-my-fingertips (Google) has an answer … many answers … a plethora of take-your-choice answers. Slowly, I begin to feel the rightness of this choice, feel things start to fall into place. ATTENTION is the word I want to explore this year. Let's see what 365 days of focusing and paying attention will bring to life.

Here are a few gleanings from this new focus on attention ...

One writer began with the definition:

at·ten·tion (noun)

1.a. The act of close or careful observing or listening.

b. The ability or power to keep the mind on something; the ability to concentrate.

c. Notice or observation.

The Redhead Riter (who bills her blog as … “witty, intelligent & addictive”) gives us 15 reasons why we don’t pay attention … 

• Too comfortable in our surroundings and take it for granted.
• Overconfident in our abilities.
• Thinking too much about the big picture.
• Fear that we will not get it all done.
• Filling our lives with too many activities.
• Not living in the moment.
• Having too much clutter around us.
• Believing that true multitasking is a reality. (Can you eat a sandwich, whistle and chew gum at the same time? No, you can’t.)
• Not having a place for everything to reside when not in use.
• Not putting back things into their proper place after use.
• Boredom.
• There’s not a lot of emotion tied in with the experience.
• Being too tired.
• We are not at optimal health.
• Believing that looking and seeing are the same thing.

to be continued, expanded, explored, savored, chewed on, observed and paid attention to ...