Paying Attention…
I wonder, sometimes.
I suppose I wonder because I have been known to ‘wander.’
I occasionally catch myself ambling through my day,
Like a man with nowhere to go, and all day to get there.
It almost seems as if I’m oblivious to what’s going on around me;
As if I’m in some giant grocery store, with music playing bravely in the background.
But I’m not tuned-in to the lyric of the song that life is singing.
Yesterday, I was reading a book.
And I actually ‘noticed’ what I was reading.
The author challenged me, the reader, to consider the following three questions as a way of making progress in my life on a very practical level; a way of helping me ‘pay attention’ to the life that’s flying by me:
So, this morning, I started a new habit — the habit of paying better attention.
I’m asking myself the three questions he recommended:
1. What is it that’s bothering me?
2. Is that something I could fix?
3. Would I be willing to fix it?
He recommends that we start small; no ned to ask about big things, starting out.
So, I asked and answered that first question:
“What’s bothering me? I’m suspicious that I have a plank in my eye, and I don’t like it.”
Second question and answer: “Could I ‘fix’ it? Yes, I suppose I could deal with the plank, if I paid attention.”
And would I be willing to fix it?
Well, actually, I’m noticing my mind starting to wander, before I can answer.
I wonder why that is?
“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye,
but do not consider the plank in your own eye?”
(Matt. 7:3)
