Paying Attention to Attention - Part 1 02. One of the hard parts 03. The list, for now 04. (Morning Wake Up Wars): #1: The automatic timer scare yourself awake alarm method 05. More than 2 items needs a list 06. (Morning Wake up Wars): #2: The Ritalin Freight Train Wake Up Routine 07. (Morning Wake up Wars): #3: I used to set my clock radio to the wrong time 08. Other Clocks, Other Times 09. They say Energy Follows Attention 10. The clock tricks went on for years -- Rumi |
09. They say Energy Follows Attention(Paying Attention to Attention - Part 9 - August 7, 2011)So if attention is so easily seduced that every word I hear turns into a song or old advertising jingle in my head, imagine how noisy it gets in there when I'm home from work for the day, loafing around, reading a magazine and the mail and a cereal box while watching TV and surfing AOL (at 9600 baud - this was the early 90s after all), drinking a beer and eating chips, when the phone rings... I don't miss a beat. I'm a multi-tasker, dammit. I finish a last couple potato chips and gracefully wipe my fingers on my jeans as I drop the magazine and pick up the phone. It's my daughter looking for a ride home from school. She's looking for a ride, because I was supposed to pick her up 10 minutes ago. Oh shit... but it's cool, coz the school is just 5 or 6 minutes away (or something like that... I mean, who's measured it, really?) so I'll be there soon enough to be almost on time. "I'm just walking out the door, baby. Hang on. see you in 5." Then I'd go find my shoes and socks and while putting them on, a new music video would come on... one I'd seen only a few times and I would get caught up and watch it a minute (or till it was over) and start thinking about the song and remember I have a CD by that band somewhere, so real quick (everything I was doing in moments like that was real quick, of course) I'd check the CD rack and after a few seconds (really, I just hung up the phone, like a minute ago, Dude), I'd spot the CD and happily pull it for the drive over to the school. Opening it, I'd see (of course) that the case was empty, so I had to check the CD player and the stack of loose and hopelessly homeless CDs to see if it was in there. And sometimes it was! (victory) and I'd head for the door, usually finding my keys with little effort (I was pretty careful about my keys and my wallet - hardly ever lost them, at home, anyway) and rushed out to the car as I peeked at the wall clock to see I was now 30 minutes late... No... (big relief!) that's the clock that was 10 minutes fast, or even 15 (I hoped), so it had just been 5 minutes since she called and I might just get there before being another 10 minutes late, and 20 minutes wasn't bad at all for me, since my average late timing was 30+ minutes for pretty much everything... You're exhausted just reading along, I'll bet. Yeah, me, too. I was a mess. It was so stressful, and I didn't even realize it. I was just coping (or not) in whatever screwed up way I could... You probably think I'm making half this shit up. Wish I was. But I'm not. Ask my kids. |
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