It would be nice if things went perfectly.
Certainly, we can say “there is no perfection”, but saying so does not change a desire’s presence.
So how do we deal with this?
The world of stories thrives in this question. Which is to say, there is no single answer. To make matters more complicated, each of us live with individual patterns and rhythms of thought.
How could there ever be a “right way” for everyone to manage their wandering minds? For our purposes, all we can do is approach a balance: a balance where we feel what is meaningful to us is growing, blooming, and being.
But there is never a stasis in balance. We can easily see ourselves drift away from and return to it. Sometimes we are in deep focus; sometimes we are scattered. Some days things click; some days are a stumble at best. Lost agency and confusion foam in our wake.
Many methods of managing require you to essentially try to stop these waves:
Focus harder! Stop getting distracted! Just schedule it!
While such encouragements are meant to be helpful, they can easily touch off ever-deepening feelings of shame and defeat.
Oceans never remains still. Instead of trying to yell at the waves to stop, we can see them as they are. We can consider, where do I have a choice? Where can I have an actual influence?
In this way, these flowing movements, individual in presentation and universal in nature, are neither right or wrong. They simply are.
We can only ride upon them.
Building the skills to manage a craft in these waters is about finding that balance. Rather than exhausting ourselves in some fight against nature, by understanding our own waves of focus, we can better use them to guide ourselves.
- Kourosh
PS The second cohort of Waves of Focus is well underway, and I’m really excited about engage everyone is. It’s sometimes just about those small adjustments that suddenly release the kinks that impeded the flow. If you’re interested in getting information about the next cohort when it comes around, sign up here.
