Taking a Step Back (A Reflective Perspective)

 In many ways American's, and much of the developed world's lives are hyperstimulated. With the world at our fingertips, there is information coming at us from all angles. Headlines and soundbites such as "breaking news, critical story" among others seek to capture our attention. When I used to regularly watch ABC's "World News Tonight", their main announcer, David Muir and all fill-in announcers always had a sense of urgency in their tone as they would stress "Tonight! Multiple developments as we come on the air!" It got to a point, where I could nearly predict their opening line word for word. 

Where we direct our attention is important. I recently watched an interview with Jeff Bezos circa 97 where he stated human attention as the most valuable commodity, and sought the need to capture it via Amazon. Bezos seemed to be ahead of his time and perhaps that's one of the reasons why his company exploded many times over. Along with attention though, is emotion. Our feelings about a person, issue, etc often direct any actions associated with it. It's no wonder why our culture strives so hard to capture and direct these. It's also why, one will hardly witness mindfulness, reflection and self-control being widely promoted.

Reflection need not be complex, and can be done in many ways. Pausing daily tasks for a few deep breaths, looking over expenses to see what we can cut to save money, reorganizing a room, or turning to prayer/meditation. These are all potentially helpful and calming strategies to regain control of our focus. For me it can be all of the above. As someone who went away to college, I learned the need to ground myself in positive activities. I helped organize the student garden, performed poetry at open-mics, had my own radio show, listened to meditation videos online, and would regularly attend mass and pray the rosary, divine mercy chaplet, the chaplet of St. Michael, or other prayers. I found it easy to focus my time and energy on these because I was interested in them.  

We all have different interests, passions and resources. At our best, these are directed to help balance our lives. It's not always necessary to be "Addicted to busy", as some analysts put it. Simple, daily reflection can help organize hectic schedules and situations. This can be as valuable as anything else before us.