Undivided human attention

Gold, silver and oil are precious commodities. But they are precious only because man has bestowed his undivided human attention on these commodities and has discovered utility in these jewels of nature. Hence it’s not gold that glitters, it’s not silver than shines, it is in fact the undivided human attention that has ornamented and decorated this barren planet earth.

Undivided human attention or focus is the name of the game. This inspired Newton to knock on the door of destiny and to summon gravity out of the veil of oblivion. It was the ability to focus that helped Thomas Edison to first discover a thousand ways of not making a bulb before he could stumble on the right method through which the great scientist converted dark and dubious nights into bright and best days. It was Steve Job’s ability to focus not for minutes and hours but for days and weeks on the perfection of his product that brought the world to the palm of every human. This ability to focus has brought about the best of poetry and the best of business to this world.

Sadly, due to modern accomplishments, man has become aloof of his Midas touch, his greatest gift-the gift of focus. Nowadays we have too many distractions and these distractions will bite us all in times to come. We are all the time distracted and disturbed. We have no time to focus on the problems at hand. Let us look at some mind-boggling statistics. 

Facebook is arguably one of the finest expressions of man’s creativity in the modern world. Therefore, it has managed to attract 2 billion users. On average every user spends an hour every day on facebook. This means that 2 billion man-hours every day are spent mostly on liking and sharing pictures. We must realize that time is the most non-renewable of all resources and are we putting it to good use through this liking and sharing activity? Ponder, please. 

Similarly, according to an estimate, there are 1 billion whatsapp users and on average every user spends half an hour every day using whatsapp. Readers can do the rest of the arithmetic themselves. The above two sets of statistics speak volumes about the quantum of distraction we have in our lives today. But what is wrong with all this?

The problem with all this facebook-ing and whasapp-ing is that we are unable to focus the beam of our thoughts on a particular issue or problem at hand. Most of us are walking day in and day out like Zombies trapped in our rut of killer routines. We are increasingly becoming soul-less walking machines.

This has a very important impact on all businesses. Any business is valuable primarily because of its people. Every business needs people who could bring their mental faculties to the best possible use and generate value for the business and its customers. This is primarily the reason due to which advanced companies like google and others provide extreme comfort to their workforce. They understand and appreciate the fact that the most important resource is the human resource and if they are comfortable, they will focus on their work and hence generate precious value for the business.

But what is the solution to this problem of distraction? Shall we all delete our facebook profiles and stop using whatsapp? Great men have always resorted to solitude in order to discover gems of wisdom. Budha went to the jungle so that the calm of the forest could rekindle his soul. Sadly most of us can’t afford such luxury anymore.

What we can do is to train our distracted and disturbed mind to regain its Midas touch and focus on problems at hand. One could develop and cultivate the habit of mindfulness meditation which helps a great deal in regaining the ability to focus our thoughts. One must also build a healthy routine with regular jogging or walking intervals so that our neurons remain young and we remain energized and creative. Regular vacations to break the pattern of killer routines can also help us in regaining our perspective of life.

In our distracted world, our human resource is unable to find creative solutions to increasingly difficult problems at hand. Solving problems is again another story most people can’t even discover the problems because they are all the time distracted or trapped in the routines. Mindfulness meditation, regular physical activity and vacations are important in breaking the rut of daily life. Through these activities, we can regain our focus and solve our problems creatively.