If you want to change your life, change what you pay attention to. “We give things meaning by paying attention to them,” Jessa Crispin writes, “and so moving your attention from one thing to another can absolutely change your future.”

Image credit: S L O W K I N G (CC BY-NC)

Years and years ago, in our pre-parenthood days, we visited Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle for the first time. We arrived shortly after they opened, stayed all the way until they closed, and still felt like we didn’t have enough time. We completely lost track of time as we observed each set of animals. In chatting with a couple friends some time later, they had the opposite experience. Once they spotted the animal in each exhibit or enclosure, they moved on to the next one. Find it, see it, keep going.

And I’m feeling like we’re all approaching life in general this way now. Myself included. We race from one notification to another task, going through the motions without really paying attention. As cliche as it may sound, we need to stop and smell the flowers.

Ordinary + Extra Attention = Extraordinary

In Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad, author Austin Kleon quotes Jessa Crispin. She’s the editor-in-chief of Bookslut, a “webzine” that she founded in 2002. More recently, he authored Why I Am Not A Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto in 2017, a book that generated a fair bit of buzz at the time. In the excerpt above, Jessa Crispin highlights such a small, but fundamental change we can make in how we interact with the world around us.

More specifically, there’s a chapter in Keep Going where Kleon discusses how, when you pay extra attention to something that is otherwise ordinary, it can become remarkably extraordinary. What you might consider mundane and everyday can be meaningful and nuanced if you take the time to reflect on it. Have you ever really stopped to smell the flowers? Have you ever taken a moment to, well, really take in the moment?

If the food you eat is nothing more than fuel to get you through your day, you’re probably not going to ascribe much value or meaning to the calories you consume. By contrast, if you really dive deep into the culinary world and explore global cuisines, unique ingredients and manners of preparation, the food you eat becomes so much more than just calories. You can say the same about interior decorating, fashion, cars, gardening… the list goes on.

When you pay attention, and take the time to reflect and immerse yourself, you create meaning. There’s more to this, whatever “this” is, if you’re willing to take the time to discover it.

Embracing a Present Awareness

I’ve felt this during our annual #5DadsGoWild camping trip, just as I did when I took a moment in Deep Cove just to breathe. Again, I realize how cliche it sounds when someone says you should “be present,” but there’s a giant nugget of truth in there. When you’re not bogged down by the past or worried about the future, if only for a moment or two, you can more fully appreciate where you are right now.

All the busy parents out there have likely had the same experience as I’ve had. The kids are bouncing off the walls, possibly throwing tantrums. You’ve got to prepare dinner, you’ve got work responsibilities piling up, you’ve got to plan a birthday party, there are errands to run. It never ends. So, you do what you have to do to get things done. But, if you pause and be present, you can be more appreciative of the current moment.

You’re in a loving home with your loving children. Life has its challenges, but big picture, you’re doing quite well. That’s how you exercise gratitude. Your “ordinary,” day-to-day life is actually quite extraordinary.

Open to New Discoveries

Jessa Crispin really hit the nail on the head. We may not have complete control over every circumstance in our lives. Of course we don’t. Even so, we do have some control over what receives our attention. Spend less time dwelling on frustrations and details that ultimately aren’t that important. Focus instead on what truly matters and you’ll find that it becomes all that much more meaningful as a result.

When you allow yourself to stop and pay attention, you also open yourself to noticing things you may have otherwise overlooked too. If you’re not racing from one task to another errand, something terrific can catch your eye. As Jerry Garcia once said (also quoted in Austin Kleon’s Keep Going):

You go diving for pearls, but sometimes you end up with clams.

And you know what? Clams are pretty good too.

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