Applying Attention

When you are taking pictures, you want to have a sharp, clear focus, whether it’s digital or destined for printing. Everything needs to be “high resolution” and today’s latest mobile phone cameras make that job easier than ever before. You want to have the same clear focus for your everyday life.

Most of us live in a culture that presents us with a bewildering array of options. These options become decisions that we wind up making. However, the confusion of too many options will largely disappear once you know how to focus. In this sense, focusing means to concentrate all your attention on one particular thing, and, much as you do with a camera, bring it into sharp relief in order to clarify your relationship with it. In other words, we make a decision.

When we concentrate our attention on a particular endeavor, problem or person, we bring all of our energy to it, shutting out the details that don’t pertain to the matter at hand. Even if we find ourselves caught in a crisis where our attention seems to be demanded everywhere at once, when we choose to focus our attention on one aspect of the problem, a solution becomes much easier. A natural progression then begins to unfold, making it possible for us to arrive, eventually, at an overall resolution.

Remember, your experience in life is determined by where and upon what you choose to focus your attention and energy, just as a photographer must decide what to focus the lens on and what to leave out. If you let your attention wander all over the place, you will end up feeling muddled and blurry, just like the picture that results from a camera lens not held still.

It is a matter of deciding what you want, and then focusing on it. Take charge of your attention, your focus, and you will be taking charge of the situation. Once you take charge of the situation, then making the most effective decision is a lot easier.