Thursday Musings on ILLUMINATION — Why Are We Always So Distracted?

I have been accused of “not-being-around” by my parents.

Was it really the case?

Then I started wondering, is this a common experience or I am alone?

Life hijacks. That would be the natural explanation and that isn’t the only explanation. When it comes to managing our personal and professional lives, our brains are simply too busy making sense of what we have to finish today because the deadlines are fast approaching and we are also thinking about those tin cans we can kick down the road because we just don’t feel like attempting them today.

Being busy is the norm these days.

I haven’t given it much thought until my dad asked me the following question: -

“Your spirit aren’t with us today. Are you worried about your business and work?”

That snapped me out of my internal chatter. I didn’t realise that I have one either.

He smiled while I was still in a daze.

So, I sat with my pen and journal after dinner to reflect. I didn’t change the question and I didn’t repackage the question in the event that I misjudged that reflection point after Thor’s hammer hit me.

Specifically, am I really distracted?

At the first level — just to clarify — I am not distracted by day-to-day distractions. And then I realised there are day-to-day distractions that siphons our time, attention and energy without us even noticing it.

It could be the endless email notifications at the side of our laptop, the non-stop visual assault of new social media or text notifications on our smartphones, the occasional and almost daily hijack of our colleagues and bosses at our desks and etc.

It is mind-numbing and precisely because it is mind-numbing — We become immune and accept their existence into our daily lives.

Those are the external sources.

Then there are the internal sources — Our minds and emotions.

When it comes to our logical minds, we are perpetually worried about today and tomorrow. We could be thinking about scheduling the necessary string of meetings which ought to be done and not so, we could deep in thoughts in terms of planning our workload and spreading it across the week so we have time to focus on current day tasks for completion, we could finding ways to unlock that big “YES!” from a prospect that we have been chasing for months.

Our minds are constantly at work where unless and until the thoughts are penned down on a Post-It note or get cleared, these thought processes keep churning around our heads in an invisible fashion and whizzes past to our attention every now and then.

It is a true hijack.

And then — Our emotions.

Our emotions — in my experience — comes in waves and cycles. Rarely do we experience a strong emotional anchor that runs deep for long.

The keyword is “rarely”.

When it does, it decimates the current immediate focus in order to funnel our utmost attention to that emotion in need.

• For instance, a moment of grief from loved one passing.
• For instance, that business crisis we have when revenue is falling and costs are escalating.
• For instance, that project in the red that has to be delayed for commissioning due to multiple technical issues and we are wondering how to break the news to our bosses without endangering our year-end promotion.

As I was putting pen to paper, it came to me that distraction and focus are just 2 sides of the same coin.

We rarely get distraction because we are staring into space. On the contrary, we are thinking of something else which we just cannot disengage from.

When it comes to the dinner I had with my parents, yes, I was distracted.

I was distracted from the dinner conversation.

That’s because I was focused on meeting my revenue targets for the month and thinking of up-selling and cross-selling to existing accounts.

As I said, I was distracted because I was focused.

It just is.

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About the Author:

As a Consultant by training, I believe in making the complex simple.

Because simplicity adds value.

Simplicity helps us gain clarity, and clarity helps us to grow.

And if we are not growing, then what’s the point of anything else?

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