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The Impoverishment of Attention
Inner, other and outer focus
We need three kinds of focus:
- Inner focus guides our values and decisions.
- Other focus smooths our relationships with people.
- Outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world.
Attention works similar to a muscle - exercise it, and it will grow, neglect it, and it can wither. How we arrange our attention shapes our reality.
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Key Ideas
Continual partial attention
We increasingly find it difficult to focus on the hear and now without checking our phones. We seem to go through life in a state of "continual partial attention." We're there but not aware of where we put our attention.
While modern technology has its advantages, our attention span is suffering. Teachers are noticing that current students find it hard to read books that previous students used to enjoy. Teachers think that students' ability to read has been compromised by short text messages and video games.
Two main varieties of distractions
- Sensory: We can more easily tune out from sensory distractions. For example, the feel of your tongue against your upper palate is an incoming stimuli your brain weeds out.
- Emotional distraction is more difficult to tune out. When you overhear someone mention your name, it's almost impossible to ignore.
Those who focus best are relatively immune to emotional disturbance.
We learn best with focused attention
As we read a book or blog, our mind constructs a mental model that helps us to make sense of what we are reading. If we can't focus, we'll have holes in our understanding.
To key to better understanding is deep reading and thinking. We can have great returns on all the information out there if we are willing to sit down and apply ourselves. Deep thought must be learned. To do that, we have to tune out most of the distractions and focus.
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Succumbing to the Availability Bias
After a particularly stressful event, most people prepare for a repeat of the same challenge they just faced. From the micro level to the macro level, we succumb to the availability bias and get re...
When Disaster Strikes
When a certain disaster or calamity happens, we work towards ensuring that the same calamity can be dealt with in the better way, the next time it happens. The pain or loss that we suffer motivates us to do so.
We forget in our preparation and resource allocation to the ‘last’ disaster, that we have neglected many other things that are more likely to happen.
Expect The Unexpected
- Life has a tendency to surprise us, and we will be most likely smacked with something totally unforeseen and unrelated to the last disaster, that one was prepared for.
- A better strategy is to realize that it is inevitable that life will hit us unexpectedly, and to grow and learn from the same.
- Being adaptive, flexible and resilient would increase our adversity quotient, making us strengthen our inner resources, and enrich our experience.
The A Player
Many stories have a lone person, who is unknown but eventually becomes a hero due to his years of toiling and getting success. We like to think of this ‘heroic’ feat as something done exclusive...
The Leader With A Team
The job of a leader is to get the right team, which according to an estimate provides three times more output than an average team.
The work of a leader isn’t as simple as hiring the best talent, and merely putting smart people together as a team is not an effective strategy.
Individual Intelligence Vs Group Intelligence
Any combination of individual intelligence does not make an intelligent group, no matter how logical it sounds on paper.
The ‘A’ Players, the cream of individual intelligence, bring in drive, integrity and the ability to mentor, but all of which is not possible without the collective effort of other players of the team, who are not A players.
Wisdom is earned
We can only earn wisdom. It cannot be given to us. When we receive answers from someone else, we might achieve the desired outcome, but the solution comes from dependence, not insi...
Owning wisdom
Wisdom is not as simple as just reading. The rules and simplicities given by others may make us feel we're getting brighter, but it is not real.
Owning wisdom requires a discipline to continue learning and not to shun the details and complexity. It is boring. It takes time. But it is the only way.