Is Focusing Scattered Attention A Challenge for You Like it is For Me?
The name implies that scattered attention is scattered. But is it the same for everyone?
I have a lot of metaphorical irons in the fire.
These include:
- Working for an amazing entrepreneur part-time
- Editing existing work to send to the editor
- Working for an awesome web-training company part-time
- Writing the first book of my new sci-fi series
- Various things for my medieval reenactment society
- A web3/Metaverse game project
- Putting together my first speaking project
It’s exciting stuff. This all works into my path – and it’s all things I enjoy that are along the paths I desire to walk in this life.
However – my attention is scattered as such. Gaining focus for my scattered attention has been challenging.
This is particularly frustrating when we get to the matter of income. Of the above projects, two have semi-predictable pay. The rest are much more nebulous (and in the case of the reenactment stuff, no pay at all).
This creates a lot of consternation because like you, I have bills to pay and other matters that require money.
As I heard Scrooge McDuck on DuckTales repeat again and again when I was much younger, “Work smarter, not harder.”
Great advice. But when you have scattered attention, focusing to work smarter is a challenge.
I have no doubt this is familiar to you, too. So, let’s take a look at why.
For the love of the art vs the money
It was made quite clear to me as a child that money makes the world go ‘round. What’s more, the highest wage earners are doctors, lawyers, and merchant chiefs (so to speak).
Hence, it got ingrained in my subconscious that these were the best paths to make money. All others involve challenges and struggles.
Despite the messages (and occasional pushes from my mom) that law, medicine, and business are the best (sometimes only) places to make money – that was never my choice. Instead, I pursued theatre (directing and sound design, some acting and stage management), radio (DJ and production), and writing.
With the arts – as all the above count as such – I bought into the notion of the starving artist. I believed that doing any art for a living earns you very little.
Unless, of course, you make it big. Become the next Bernadette Peters or Howard Stern or Stephen King and watch the awards and money flow. Or at least – that was the message I received often.
And I have believed I could reach those levels. Or at least a level near enough that I sustain myself with my art.
Yet I still fight the notion of the love of art versus money. Somewhere deep in my subconscious I still believe it’s one or the other – but not both.
This has been some of the cause of my scattered attention. And with it, frustration when my earnings are not what I feel they should be.
Would better focus gain me more income?
Focusing scattered attention
I listed 7 things I am doing at present. Each has some interconnectivity to it. But the question of focus is still relevant.
The two jobs working for others part-time take precedence. In part, because they pay. But also, in part, because they are work for others and impact more than just me.
But as to the rest of my scattered attention – what should take precedence?
This is actually much easier than my brain makes it.
For example – the web3 project demands very little of my time. When I need to attend to it – I do. And I have chosen to spend less time on the things I do for the medieval reenactment society.
I’m nearly done with my edits. Writing is always ongoing. But putting together my first speaking gig opens a way to tie it all together.
What will I be speaking on? Pathwalking. But this is a new approach, a different angle – one that I have always thought Pathwalking could take. Because it’s never been just about me. I’ve been sharing this for more than a decade because I think it’s valuable to everyone.
So many people struggle. Some struggles are big – others, not so much. But because kindness, compassion, and caring are universal desires – struggles people face tend to be equally universal. Having more tools to cope, work with, or change things is always valuable.
That’s been part of my aim all along. Even in my fiction – that’s part of what my characters endure and work through, too.
I’m pretty sure that’s just the human condition,
Likewise – so is scattered attention.
Scattered attention might be universal
I am in no way, shape, or form, negating anyone’s mental health. But over the past few years, I have known more and more people diagnosed with adult ADHD.
For many of those people, prescriptions they’ve received have helped them to take the scattered attention of ADHD and focus it. I think that’s awesome. Particularly when it balances them out and increased their contentment and productivity.
But what if this is not so rare, and much more normal? What if scattered attention is more Universal?
Look at the world we live in. Devices created to better connect us have actually disconnected us. What’s more – they create numerous distractions that cause even more scattered attention.
What can we do about this? I think the best answer is mindfulness. Specifically – maintaining conscious awareness of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. That allows us to check in with ourselves and recognize if we have issues with scattered attention.
From there – we can create focus to combat it.
Self-awareness. Mindfulness. Conscious reality creation. All tied together in my Pathwalking concept Maybe it’s not easy – but I find the work to live this way to be utterly worth it.
It’s a challenge. But then, really, isn’t that part of what keeps life interesting?
Do you have issues with scattered attention?
This is the five-hundred and fifty-first exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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