What Are You Giving Your Attention To?

ave you ever listened to yourself describe an ordinary day? It might be interesting to try, because most of us probably don't realize how much commentary is running through our day. We wake up and notice that it is raining. We get into the car and notice the traffic. We stop at the grocery store and notice how crowded it is. Something costs more than it did the last time we bought it, someone says something irritating, the house needs cleaning, and by the time we sit down at the end of the day we may quite truthfully say, “What a day.”

But what kind of day was it?

That is a much more interesting question, because the rain was real, the traffic was real, and the crowded store was real. We don't need to pretend that something pleasant happened when it didn't, and appreciating our lives should never require us to ignore the things that need attention. There will always be problems to solve, disappointments to work through, people who concern us, responsibilities we would rather not have, and days that genuinely don't go particularly well. The question is whether those things were the whole day, or whether they became the whole day because they were the things that received most of our attention.

Perhaps there was also a beautiful tree beside the road that had turned almost entirely red overnight. Perhaps someone made you laugh when you weren't expecting it. Perhaps you came through the door at the end of the day and were genuinely glad to be home. Those moments were real too, but they may not have demanded your attention with the same intensity as the traffic, the aggravation, or the problem that still needs solving. At the end of the day, which experiences became the story you remembered?

What Our Attention Finds First

Human beings are remarkably good at noticing what is wrong, and there is a reason for that. For much of human history, noticing the thing that didn't belong - the unfamiliar sound in the woods or the food that smelled wrong could - be far more important to survival than stopping to admire something beautiful. Even now, unpleasant or threatening information can capture our attention more intensely than something that is beautiful or fun. A criticism may stay with us long after several kind comments have faded from memory, and one unpleasant encounter can become the story we tell about a day that contained many other experiences.

That ability to recognize a potential problem remains valuable because we still need to notice when something is wrong, determine whether it matters, and respond when necessary. The difficulty begins when a useful capacity for detecting problems becomes the primary lens through which we experience our lives, particularly when we continue giving those problems our attention long after our attention has stopped being useful.

There are people who seem to narrate nearly everything through what is wrong with it. The weather is too cold, the road is too busy, something costs too much, somebody isn't behaving properly; for many people, something always seems to be going wrong. Most people who fall into this pattern probably haven't consciously decided to spend their lives looking for problems; it has become more of a habit, a familiar way of noticing and describing the world. We also can hear it more easily in another person than we can hear it in ourselves.

That is worth considering because our words are not separate from the way we experience our lives. Throughout the day we are identifying what deserves our attention, giving it language and often repeating that interpretation to ourselves or somebody else, over and over again. We aren't only living the day; to some degree, we are narrating it as we go, and if the narration continually emphasizes inconvenience, disappointment, and irritation, eventually we may begin to experience our lives through the story we have repeatedly told about them.

Two Things Can Be True at the Same Time

This is where appreciation can become much more useful than telling ourselves that we should “think positively.” Suppose it is a cold, grey, rainy October morning and you had planned to spend part of the day outside. Saying, “Isn't this a gorgeous sunny day?” isn't going to make everything miraculously perfect. You can acknowledge that the weather is disappointing, you can change your plans. Maybe you can wish that the sun had come out, while also recognizing that the rain does not have to decide what happens to the rest of your day. Maybe the baseball game isn't happening, but something else can. The weather changed one part of the day; it doesn't automatically get ownership of everything that follows.

The same is true of much larger things. You can be worried about something and still recognize what is going well. You can be frustrated with someone you love while remembering why you love them. You can be going through a genuinely difficult period of life and still experience beauty, humour, friendship, accomplishment or peace within it. One truth does not cancel the other, and learning to hold both may give us a far more accurate picture of our lives than either relentless negativity or forced positivity ever could.

Maybe that is the important distinction:

Seeing what is wrong is not the problem. Seeing only what is wrong can become one.

What Needs My Attention — and What Is Taking My Attention?

When something isn't right, it deserves more than either complaining about it or trying to cover it with a positive thought. It deserves discernment. What actually happened? Why did it affect me? Is there something here that needs to change, and if there is, what can I reasonably do about it?

Take something as ordinary as a crowded store. The observation is that the store was crowded, but that alone doesn't tell us very much. Did the crowd make you anxious? Were you already tired and overwhelmed before you walked through the door? Were you frustrated because you were in a hurry? Once you understand what actually bothered you, there may be something useful you can do next time: shop at a quieter hour, give yourself more time, or recognize that today you were already running on empty. If there is an action available, take it. If there isn't, continuing to replay how crowded the store was isn't solving anything.

The same process applies when the matter is more important. If your body hurts, the observation is that your body hurts. The next question is not how to make yourself feel positive about being uncomfortable; it is whether you know why it hurts, whether something can be changed, whether it needs attention, and what action is available to you. Investigate what can be investigated and change what can reasonably be changed. If there is something you cannot change today, acknowledge that reality too. The useful part of attention is the part that helps us understand, decide, or act. Once we have done what is available to us, continuing to circle the same thought gives you an easy way of filling your thought time with replays rather than staying present in your day-to-day moments.

There is enduring wisdom in recognizing the difference between what we can change, what we must accept for now, and having enough discernment to know which situation we are actually facing. This does not ask us to become passive; quite the opposite. It asks us to act where our actions matter and stop spending enormous amounts of ourselves and our energy replaying circumstances that we presently have no control over.

What Else Is True?

Only after we have looked honestly at what happened, understood what deserves our attention, and decided whether there is something we can do about it does this question become really valuable: What else is true?

If your morning didn't go according to plan, perhaps there was something that genuinely needed your attention, and changing course was exactly the right thing to do. Deal with what needs dealing with, but then look at the rest of the morning rather than allowing one disruption to become the description of the entire day. If someone disappointed you, consider what actually happened before deciding what the experience means. Was your expectation reasonable? Was there a misunderstanding? Is there a conversation that needs to happen? Thinking about this situation may lead to forgiveness, a conversation, a boundary, or no action at all, but it gives the experience somewhere to go instead of allowing disappointment to keep circulating through your thoughts.

“What else is true?” is not a way of erasing what happened. It is a way of making sure we have not mistaken one part of reality for all of reality. Something can require our attention without deserving every available space in our mind. We can address the difficult part, learn what it has to teach us, change what we can, and then deliberately widen our awareness again. There may still be a problem sitting there tomorrow, but there may also be dinner cooking, somebody we love sitting across from us, and an October evening outside the window that we would have missed entirely if our attention had remained fixed on the one thing that went wrong.

We Are Also Affected by What Reaches Us

There is another side of this because not everything influencing our outlook originates inside our own thoughts. We are continually taking in the emotional atmosphere around us: conversations, television, social media, news, workplace tension, and the moods and words of the people with whom we spend our time. We may be very deliberate about what we eat and what we put on our bodies while rarely considering what we allow to enter our attention hour after hour.

Think of a rock sitting in moving water. The rock may appear strong and unchanged, particularly from one day to the next, but water has tremendous influence when it moves across the same surface continually. A quiet lake and a fast-moving river do not shape stone in the same way. The difference is the intensity, repetition, and duration of what has been moving against it.

There is something useful for us in that comparison. Repeated negativity can become a current running through our days. It may come from a person who begins every conversation with what is wrong, a workplace where irritation has become the normal language, or hours spent consuming information that continually returns our attention to conflict, fear, and outrage. One comment may roll past us without much consequence, but years of hearing what is wrong with the world, what is wrong with other people, or what is wrong with us can influence the way we expect the world to be.

That current can begin very early. A naturally enthusiastic child who repeatedly hears “settle down,” “be quiet,” or “don't get too excited” begins receiving information about how much of that enthusiasm belongs in the world. A child who walks onto the playground wondering why nobody wants to play with them is already interpreting an experience and beginning to form a story about what it means. As adults, we carry some stories that started long before we realized we were creating them, and then we continue deciding which experiences confirm those stories and which ones barely register.

We cannot control everything that moves around us. We cannot make every workplace pleasant, prevent every person we love from having a bad day, or remove difficult events from the world. We can, however, become more discerning about the intensity of the current we voluntarily stand in. We can decide how much upsetting information we need in order to be informed, notice when a conversation has become an endless exchange of complaints, and consider whether every negative thought deserves to be repeated aloud, shared with somebody else, and carried forward into the next part of the day.

We may not be able to stop the river, but sometimes we can step closer to the bank.

The Story We Keep Repeating

Perhaps this is where attention, language and appreciation finally come together. If we repeatedly describe our life as exhausting, irritating, disappointing or unfair, those words can become more than observations about individual moments. They can gradually become the story through which we understand our life, and once that story becomes familiar, we become very good at finding the experiences that appear to confirm it.

The answer is not to replace that story with another performance in which we force ourselves to describe everything as wonderful. Instead, we can become more accurate observers. We can notice the hard thing and the beautiful thing, recognize the person who disappointed us and the person who showed up for us, and see what still needs work while also seeing what has already changed. The goal isn't to create a prettier version of reality; it is to stop allowing one part of reality to obscure everything else that is also true.

Listen to Your Own Narration

As Thanksgiving approaches, perhaps we don't need to begin by asking ourselves to feel more grateful. We could begin by becoming curious about what we notice and what we repeatedly allow into our attention. For one day, listen to your own running commentary without immediately trying to correct it. Notice which things receive your strongest reaction, which experiences you repeat later in conversation, and which thoughts you return to after there is no longer anything useful you can do with them. At the same time, notice what you are hearing from the people, media and environments around you, and whether those influences leave you feeling informed and connected or continually pull your attention toward what is wrong.

Then practise discernment. When something bothers you, ask what actually happened, why it matters and whether there is anything useful you can do about it. If there is, do what is reasonably within your control. If there isn't, recognize that continuing to give it your attention will not necessarily change the outcome. Then widen the picture and ask, What else is true?

There may still be something that needs fixing, something painful that deserves to be felt, or something you wish were different. None of that has to disappear before you notice what is beautiful, meaningful, funny, loving, useful, or good. A difficult thing can be happening within a beautiful life, a disappointing moment can happen within a good day, and something can need work without everything being wrong.

Perhaps the goal isn't to become a person who sees only the positive. Perhaps it is to become a person who sees more of what is actually there, who knows what deserves attention and what does not, who acts when action is possible and who is careful about allowing what is difficult to become the only story being told.

And when we begin seeing our lives that way, appreciation may not be something we have to manufacture at all. Much of it may already be present in the ordinary day we are living. We just have to notice it.

Thanksgiving may be a day coming up soon, but having gratitude and appreciation in your everyday life is a beautiful way of living every day.