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Aug 10, 2020

Attention

 

For the past few months, media is constantly abuzz with news about a famous actor's demise - updates, twists, viewpoints by celebrities etc. Many of us are following such updates on a daily basis. The topic trending on Twitter everyday is related to this news.

When our minds are deeply focused on this one topic, there is a very high possibility that we might be ignoring other updates and important happenings around the world. Sometimes when I ponder over this, I wonder if this situation is intentionally pre-designed so we would ignore the current situation - how it is being projected, fear-mongering tactics, the unregulated buzz word "immunity" and numerous offerings being launched to boost the same.

Our attention is like a river. We can control the flow, the direction, the number of tributaries and the kind of materials it gathers while it flows. This is possible through awareness of our thoughts, our feelings and our emotions. At the same time, external triggers (news, social media, information overload) can play an important role which can influence the flow of this river of attention. The flow can be twisted in such a way that we end up feeling more anxious, more angry or more depressed.

The more attention we pay to these external sources, the less attention we have for other important issues. 

Our attention is finite. Let's consciously choose what we pay attention to at every moment.