George Orwell said this about living with focus: “To see what is front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
It’s so easy — much too easy — to find ourselves perpetually distracted, constantly diverting our gaze from what is necessary now, staring instead at that which barely matters at all.
By nature, we all have a short attention span, and our peripheral vision often works more like a telescope. Maintaining eyes-in-front is a never-ending battle.
King Solomon gave us this guideline to follow:
Let your eyes look straight ahead, and fix your gaze directly before you. (Proverbs 4:25)
How might we put this into practice?
Make this day about one thing, and one thing alone.
That goes for this day, and each new day to come.
Every morning, bright and early, we can declare out loud: “If nothing else gets done today, this one thing gets done. And if this one thing gets done, today counts as a win.”
This “one thing” could be almost anything:
– A conversation to make.
– A task to complete.
– It could be the first step of a project you’ve been putting off.
– Or the final step of a project that’s been dragging on.
– It could be to avoid a very old bad habit.
– Or to pursue a brand new good habit.
– It could be to put in a full day’s work.
– It could be to get a good night’s sleep.
– This “one thing” could even be to cross off all the items on a list.
The objective is that we live this day — and every day — with intention. With a sense of direction. With a steadfast focus on what matters most.
Not tending to everything all at once may seem, at first, almost lazy. There’s something about feeling frazzled that lets us think we’re at least moving in the right direction.
But frazzled rarely gets the job done.
No doubt, for all of us, we have much to keep us busy, and there’s still so much do.
Surely we’ll get there … one fully focused day at a time.
