Photo: Vasyl Hnyp
We currently live in a life where’s it’s much easier to distract ourselves than it is to know what we’re really thinking! I mean let’s be honest, the thing you’re reading this on can be an amazing device of unlimited information from topic to topic. Anything you want to know can be found in an instant from almost anywhere on the planet! Super freaking cool!
On the flip side, how often are we really able to sit there without something to hold our attention? Something to pull us away from observations. Something that takes us away from awareness.
It’s rare nowadays that we’re “bored.” Like truly bored. When there’s nothing that can stimulate us. I mean we even take our phones with us to take a #2. Wtf??? I’d argue that most of the greatest minds of all time were ones that “got away from it all” to put thoughts to paper. Thoreau went to Lake Walden. You hear of writers renting cabins in the woods, ALL THE TIME, to finish or write a book. I mean, heck, as I write this, I’m in an area with no cell signal. But we are all enamored in our lives with the phones, with the computers, with the social media dopamine hits.
More than anything else, I’m writing this in an effort to help create even the subtle hints of awareness around what we’re doing, what we’re thinking. If the next time you even think twice before picking up your phone, that’s awareness. If you start to type in the URL for that site that you’ve already visited 8 times today and just acknowledge that, hmmmm…that’s a lot of visits, you’re creating awareness.
It’s my belief that awareness is the key to effective emotional management, we react rather than respond in this period of time, and I think that if we were just a little more thoughtful about what we were thinking (see what I did there), it would go a long way in having a lot more happiness and a lot less strife.
So how about this…over the next few days, just take notice of how often you pick up your phone or use the screen time setting on your phone? Maybe even put some time limits on those apps? Could be a good start in reclaiming some awareness…