Today there is more available to help, inform, distract, or entertain us than ever before.
With an exhaustive list on any subject, we can listen to music by saying “Alexa play top 40 indie songs”, order food with our phones, listen to podcasts, watch UTube videos, and unlike our earlier selves watch live or streaming television over thousands of channels. Books are delivered via Amazon the next day someone recommends a title. And last but not least, we can engage with Social Media and connect virtually to people we know, don’t know, without them ever knowing.
We are told to Be Here Now (Echerd Tolle), Untether our Soul (Michael Singer), Embrace our Worries (Thich Nhat Hanh), and all of this is just what I’ve paid attention to this month. It can be overwhelming and exhausting at times.
So what do we listen to? Who should we pay attention to? Lately I’ve taken to believing that we are our own works in progress, projects we need to manage most efficiently for best outcomes. It’s important to pay attention to what helps us and avoid the pitfalls of leaning into distractions that don’t serve us. Unlike the farmer who works in a prescribed manner from sunrise to sundown, we who don’t work long hours have lots of free time to fill our days with activities that we define. And yes, this blog post presumes you have lots of free time. With this freedom one needs to do the hard work in order to stay on the rails so to speak. If we fail, depression and anxiety sit on the sidelines in wait. Attention must be paid to our own production for we reap what we sow. The noise around us must be managed for best results.
Efforts include how you start your day, like avoiding social media for the first 30 minutes, exercising your body and mind at a prescribed time of day, eating right, sleeping right, drinking less and getting fresh air. It’s akin to having a pet, but we are the pet and the owner. If we are not careful this work can bring us down with its futility, but if we are wise to it, we can embrace the effort with humor and diligence, acknowledging that there are days we fail to get all the elements right.
There is a diet for people who need to be accountable to themselves called, “Bite it Write it”. I’ve taken to writing down in my e-calendar many of the things I do each day, not what I eat, but aspects like exercise, socializing in person if possible and if not by phone/text, learning something, being entertained. These are the major recipe ingredients I need to be a happy sentient being. The accountability brings me satisfaction, like completing a work project each day.
A good day has many things checked off, but an even better day has nothing checked off as I’m in the flow of simply enjoying life without measure, the reward for all my previous efforts.
bethwordpresscom2016 