Matt Green - The Art of Staying Focused

The Art of StayingFocused

Matt Green

Published by Matt Green atSmashwords

Copyright 2016 MattGreen

Smashwords Edition LicenseNotes

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Birth of Mind and Dying ofSenses

Attention given to past,present and future

Importance ofFocus

Everything andNothing

Regaining Focus

Relaxed andfocused

Whats next?

Birth of Mind and Dying ofSenses

What if I do not get the jobthat I applied for?

What if I do not get what Iwant?

What if she does not likeme?

What if another earthquakehits the town?

These are called thewhat-ifs that most adults in this modern society have.

You have never heard a babyspending all their time in the day worrying if he would run out ofmilk the next day.

Nor have you heard of acaveman feeling depressed because of something the other cavemansaid.

Then why is it that almostevery adult worries about something everyday?

In fact, this is not justhappening to adult, any person who has developed mind encountersthe same problem. The mind is the voice in the head that seemsnearly impossible to stop.

I have always been thinkingusing my mind for as long as I can remember.

It just seemed so logicaland normal to think when I am doing something, be it in the showeror while I am doing a jump shoot in the court.

Regardless of the content, Iwas always thinking.

Sometimes I think of goodthoughts when there were no major problems, I pictured myself withall the candies I fancied when I was 8, I imagined myself beingwith the popular girl in school when I was 13.

School work was a breeze andI never had to really concentrate on my studies to score well,perhaps just the few days before exam I would sit down for an houror two to really revise.

Instead, my thoughts weremainly consumed by the girl that I had a huge crush on but neverhad the courage to confess to her. I never noticed at that time butI was making a lot of mistakes that I deemed careless, like mixingsome letters up while composing my essays or accidentally trippedon the steps.

That all happened because myattention was elsewhere all the time, it was invested entirely onthe girl.

When the voice in my headdid begin to speak?

That is a question that Icould never know the answer for sure. Nonetheless, I doubt itstarted the moment I was born to this world.

The voice in my head did notcome with my birth, it came later.

Human were born with theirsenses, the sense of touch, the sense of smell but notmind.

As we grow up, we weretaught to think and definitions on each object were given bydifferent people around us. A stone is a stone in the layman termsand is a material of some sort in the scientificterminology.

Telling an obese person thatshe is fat is bad and complimenting on a mediocre effort ismanners. Everything is getting labeled as we grow older.

I remember being repeatedlytold to question myself who am I because parents, teachers,motivational speakers said it is very important to know yourself.But I had not a single clue about who I am.

No one told me who I am, Iwas only told what I should be.

So in desperate need of animage, I started defining qualities (or lack of) that I thought Ipossessed and I created a concept of who I thought I was. I heldfirm to that image that I made for myself and defended it in everyway I could.

I told myself that I was shywith girls so I never wanted to make effort to approach girlsbecause why bother?

One could not change who heis not.

My mind had not been able tosettle down since as long as I could remember. I went to bed earlybut I could never fall asleep. It was either I was worrying aboutwhat might or might not happen or I was fantasizing a world that Ihad complete control.

When I finally fell asleep,that was the only time where my mind shut up and left me in peace.As soon as I woke up, the mind started to speak and took away thelittle peace that I had in my sleep. So as this voice called mindkeep speaking, the image that I created for myself was continuouslybeing fortified by it.

They say A thousand liesmake it true. And that was what happened, my voice kept telling mewho I was so I defended it vigorously.

Consciousness is differentfrom mind, we were born with consciousness but not mind. Awarenessis a kind of consciousness.

When you are being aware ofthings that are happening around you, being acutely focus oneverything that is going on, you are conscious.

People are hardly aware atwhat they do these days, they are just going through the motion. Wewere first born with consciousness, and then came mind.

With mind, we became todevelop thoughts. Most of them unnecessary.

How does it affect mylife?

How does this mind affectthe things that I do?

Attention given to past,present and future.

Ask anyone around you whatson their mind.

My bet is that it willeither be about what had happened in the past or their5-years-plan in the future.

People always have regretsabout what had gone wrong in the past. There are always things thatthey wished did not happen or wish they had donedifferently.

The regrets then turned intopain, a pain that is associated with guilt.

This pain consistently harmsa person psychologically and reels such persons attention moreinto the person, away from the present.

When this happen, the personis not paying attention on what he is doing at themoment.

How can excellence comesfrom action that is just going through the motion?

The consequences of notbeing the cool kid in school made me loathe the pastimmensely.

I did not admit it at thattime but the constant absence of my parents only made worse myhatred for the past.

Days went by and I gave thepast more attention that it deserved, so much so that it wasconsuming my sleep, my health and had taken over the control of myown thoughts.

Ironically, little did Iknow that I never really had the control over my own thoughts. Inever had the choice to make decisions as to what I should thinkand what do I want to think.

It was all generated by themind itself.

A choice is when you havethe option to say no. In my case, I thought I had the control but Icould not say no to my seemingly endless rant in myhead.

When the past became overlypainful to think about, I needed something nice to divert myattention to.

So I looked into thefuture.

I told myself that I justhad to endure the pain right now that was caused by thepast.

The idea I had was that onceI managed to brace myself and ignore all the problems that werehappening now, then the future will be sweet as ever.

I then created a future ofmy liking. I designed it like how a director would direct amovie.

Everything in my own versionof future seemed flawless and perfectly in place.

In the stage of my world, Iwould be the hero that would capture everyones heart and save theday. All my flaws would then go away in such future, nothing badwould remain there.

It never occurred to me thatthis was a disease.

The society has beautifulwords for this disease though, some called it daydreaming, somecalled it visions, and some called it imagination.

But really, it is just plainmadness. Having a plan and putting actions to it is the right thingto do. Fantasizing about something that do not exist and justwaiting for it to happen is insanity.

That was exactly what I did nothing.