If it seems easy to choose – and hold yourself accountable for the outcome – it isn’t really, hey? You know that. The difficulties start before the choice is even made. The world these days seems like one big sweet-shop with all on offer less than a cent! How much there is to choose! Friends, foods, pastimes, destinations, vibes, the list is long. And yet how often are you caught in the trap of too much choice – and end up doing nothing? Probably a lot! This is called distraction.
Here is the great 20th century poet, TS Eliot, in one of his most famous poems (Little Gidding): ‘Distracted from distraction by distraction’. This was the 1940s, imagine if Eliot had been alive now! Our tendency is to allow our minds to become scattered, full of random thoughts, lacking clarity of purpose. Like a butterfly, to flit from topic to topic without settling, not focusing on any one matter, a superficial location, a sign of random thinking, a futile buffeting from pillar to post, and back again. No plan, no control, no achievement.
To be fair, it can be hard to know what to do. The opportunity for distraction in modern day communication, for instance, is plentiful. These tools are programmed to attract viewers down a rabbit-hole of endless new images, magnetic beyond the power of most people to resist. And there are your friends, demanding attention, online or in person, tik-tokking, whatsapping, tweeting, it’s no wonder FOMO is so pervasive. How could one not be in fear of missing out on something important?
Yet these are the distractions of life. And if you let them, they will take over. Continuously drawing you from a purpose that may be important to you towards something less valuable, more transient, less satisfying. And to be honest, dealing with the effect of distraction is just as hard. But here are some suggestions.
Try to maintain a balance between the choices and the lack of choices, or the ‘non-choices’ as we might call them. Let your mind acknowledge ‘it is an ‘and’, not an ‘or’’, in other words you can do both, embrace both options. Concentration helps also (Eliot knew this, he was a fierce concentrator) as it maintains focus in your life, focus on the big questions, the big decisions. Meditation helps because it clears the mind temporarily of thoughts – and it is these little demons that cause the problem! Remind yourself regularly that you will turn 40 years, and 50., and 60…sooner or later. And how awful it will be for you to wake up on that day and realise your life is passing away before your very eyes.
The danger of course is for you to fritter away chunks of your life as if you can revisit it later. Not possible, amigo! It is NOW, your life. Any distraction can cause you regret later, especially as you approach death.