"Living the focused life is not about trying to feel happy all the time ... rather, it's about treating your mind as you would a private garden and being as careful as possible what you introduce and allow to grow there."
- from Rapt by Winifred Gallagher (2009)
Gallagher's book begins with a cancer diagnosis ("not just cancer, but a particularly nasty, fairly advanced kind").
She realises that this disease wants to claim her attention, and that this would be no way to live what could be the last moments of her life.
So she launches an experiment to reclaim her attention, relentlessly redirecting it toward the things that matter most: "big ones like family and friends, spiritual life and work, and smaller ones like movies, walks, and a 6:30 pm martini".
I agree with the aspiration - and anyway, how you habitually think and what about shows on peoples' faces (have you noticed?). Vanity alone is enough of an incentive to concentrate on what seems, feels, is good.
However, 6:30 is too early, 8 pm a better time.
Am I serious?
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reordering our lives is not something that comes easily - even when we want it in theory. It usually has to be forced upon us...
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