MAKING TIME IS SELF-DECEPTION
Sunday, February 7, 2021 - daily column #6661
Attention is in limited supply.
Like time, we are surrounded by it – but we can’t touch it, can’t save it, hoard it or make it – we can only spend it or waste it. The richest and poorest among us are equal every day of their lives, no matter how they make choices.
Every 24 hours, we all have the same maximum limit on our capacity to spend, use, or waste time; then we reset to another day and another until we end.
The most I can give to anything or anyone is ‘all of my time.’
The least I can give is none.
While very few things get our all-out effort, way too many get none at all …
If I give my attention to one thing, it’s got me.
If I give my attention to ten things, or 50, or a hundred – what quality of attention am I giving to anything, or anyone, that shows my intention to offer value.
Of all things which interrupt my day, most of them are self-inflicted: things I signed up for filling my in-box, newspapers arrive – ink on paper – or fonts on screens, it’s never-ending. Add the spam, add the solicitations from everyone who wants to interrupt me …
I realize that I’m a guilty party too. I publish things daily, weekly, and monthly, which interrupt people.
And I call or write people about things, or just to talk.
Add Zoom et al to this equation, and we are awash in new ways of working and playing, new ways of making friends, keeping friends, and losing some.
In every interaction, from the flyers that stuff my morning paper or fill my mailbox to things that show up on time, or randomly, they all compete for my attention.
This begs the question: if I focus better/more on things that matter most, what will I abandon?
We’ve all heard of, or know people who have, cut their landline.
Some cut their cable too …
Internet-driven attention has baited this trap with information we want – it’s tasty, we want more as if we are Pavlov’s dogs being manipulated.
The more significant challenge for all of us is to cut and disconnect from time-wasting, energy-draining distractions and spend more time on what matters with those who matter. It’s not about money or influence; it’s not about building our productivity or spheres of influence – because it might be about any or all of those, but most important is a recognition we are managing a diminishing resource.
Will Rogers said, “Buy land; they ain’t makin’ any more of it.”
I say, “Use your time; they ain’t makin’ any more of it – and you burn up 24 hours every day whether you are rich or poor, healthy or sick.”
Whatever age we are, we recall idyllic simpler times of relaxation, discretion, abdicating communication – whether it was a camping trip where there were no phones or a silent weekend at home when the phone got disconnected.
Simpler times.
Will we ever have them again?
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