In 1817, Robert Owen coined the slogan: Eight Hours’ Work, Eight Hours’ Rest, Eight Hours’ Recreation. However, today, it feels like more and more leisure time is being coerced from us and not enjoyed by us.
If paying attention is essential to life, then what (and who) grabs our attention determines who we are. In his book The Sirens Call, Chris Hayes asks a foundational question that is far more challenging to answer than we might like.
What do we want to pay attention to?
Let’s attempt to answer this difficult question by starting with the “eight” hours of recreation. Many of us have families and careers that render eight hours impossible, so you may need to start with an incremental goal for free time. The answer is even more complex for me, a retired person living abroad because I have sixteen hours to pay attention to what I choose.
Recently, as I grappled with this thorny issue, I realized I was “selling my soul” to mainstream media and social networks. I’m free to do whatever I choose. But its unhealthy toll increased as the global situation (democracy, climate, compassion, freedom) deteriorated. As I assessed my time, “doom scrolling” stole most of my “free” time.
Life is too short.
So, as I have written previously, I ruthlessly deleted social networks and mainstream media from my life. Period. To say this has been difficult is an understatement. At first, I found myself mindlessly staring at my darkened computer screen. Gina and I struggled to fill the evenings that were habitually filled with our favorite comedians who now mostly talk politics because that grabs attention, i.e., makes the most money for their media conglomerates.
So, what do I want to pay attention to? What do I want to fill the inner recesses of my being? I made a list of “ing” words. We call these the gerunds of the English language; they are verbs that act like nouns. They indicate that something is happening at the moment. These are in no particular order.
- Reading
- Writing
- Painting
- Cooking
- Communing
- Fucking
- Exploring
- Becoming
- Discovering
- Encouraging
- Running
- Eating
- Drinking
- Imagining
- Improving
- Loving
- Listening
- Savoring
- Questioning
- Learning
- Resting
- Meditating
- Sensing
I then categorized them according to the aspects of my being: Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual. The ones that enhance all four aspects are the activities that are worth my full attention as they lead to wholeness, which, in my Theory of Being, is enlightenment. Wholeness is my holy grail.
For example, reading great books enhances my physical relaxation, mental curiosity, emotional well-being, and spiritual values. Thus, reading cultivates wholeness and, therefore, deserves my attention.
Scrolling mainstream and social media reduces my relaxation, numbs my curiosity, produces unhealthy emotions, and brainwashes my spirituality. Therefore, I should avoid those things.
What would your list look like?
Since I have redirected what grabs my attention, the health of my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being feels refreshed and vibrant. It is like I’ve been micro-dosing magic mushrooms every day. The results since the November 5 (79 days as of this writing) redirection of my attention have been dramatic.
I have:
- Read twenty-seven books with 8984 pages, an average of 374 pages per book.
- Written over 14,244 words.
- Walked over 395,000 steps (approx. 181 miles).
- Ran sixty-nine miles.
- Worked out with weights 29 times.
- Enjoyed sex over forty times.
- Cooked over sixty meals.
- Sketched and painted seven works of art.
- Created a mixed-media project for our home.
- Meditated every day for at least ten minutes (13 hours).
- Learned 454 new Spanish words and earned mid-level A1 CERF.
- Had five tantric massages.
- Explored four museums and two libraries.
- Savored 79 coffee and cocktail hour conversations with Gina.
- Enjoyed two extraordinary musical experiences at historic theatres.
- Celebrated the holidays with four parties out.
- Watched “Wicked” at the Cinema
- Binged five television series: The Law According to Lidia Poët, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Sinner, Ratched, and Empress.
- And more.
Having just compiled this list, I am stunned at how much I have accomplished and how much more enjoyable life has been in the past eleven weeks.
What about you, courageous reader? What could you accomplish and enjoy more if you redirected your attention?
I am grateful for Chris Hayes’s powerful question, which inspired this post: “If we didn’t have all the technologies and corporations vying for our attention—if our attention wasn’t being commodified and extracted, what would we choose to pay attention to?”
***Important, please keep Doris B, a member of this community, in your thoughts and heart. Her husband Jim died unexpectedly this past week.
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