Change the focus

Today while I was waiting for Christopher during his trumpet lesson I was playing around taking shots for my 365 photo challenge. It was raining today and I was alternating between taking shots of the rain on the windshield and zooming in to the speed limit sign down the road. Not changing the location of the camera or any other settings, just changing the focus and I was getting two totally different sets of shots with a different feel to them.



So of course then the blog starting writing in my head. Isn't that life really? It's all what you are focusing on. Where are we putting our energy right now? Are you so busy looking to the future that you can't see what is going on right now? Or are you so worried about the day to day that you haven't even imagined what tomorrow could bring? Where is your focus? And should it be there?



I am often multi-focused, which is a much nicer way of putting it then saying I can be flighty. I have always been this way. I usually have two or three different things running in my head at one time. I can be watching TV while thinking about a conversation I had earlier in the day while writing a blog and I go in and out of deeper focus on each one item while the others continue running in my head. This has been a blessing and a curse. When I was working in advertising it was really a benefit, especially during meetings. I could be presenting an advertising plan while watching the reactions of the co-op members and thinking ahead to the questions they were most likely to ask while also making mental notes on who I needed to call as soon as the meeting was over to get plans into action. Then when the meeting was over I wrote the meeting minutes so I would need to replay the entire meeting again, who said what, when and who voted on it, all with the help of very sparse notes and do that while making those calls and placing orders and sending follow up emails.

But the problem comes when it's time to go to sleep and your brain is still trying to focus on a handful of things. You can quiet one thread and another picks right up. We call it busy brain in my house. Some nights are harder than others to quiet down all of the chatter in my head and get to sleep. So through the years I have learned a few tricks on changing my focus. Instead of letting thoughts run wild I pick one thing to really concentrate on. Breathing or counting. Something that will engage my brain but not encourage it to continue running. Sometimes this works long enough to fall asleep.



But it happens everyday in big and little ways. How many times have you commented on a new sign or paint job or co-worker's haircut only to be told it had been changed weeks ago, you just didn't notice. You hadn't focused on it before, but once you did BAM you noticed all the changes. It's all about where your main focus has been. Maybe up until that point your head had been busy working on a particularly sticky problem at work, or at home and so all of your extra energy has been directed towards that. Everything else in your life took on less focus.

Is this good or bad? I have to say it is neither one, it just is. But what I can say is if you are miserable. If you are feeling like the world is against you. If you are sad or mad at everyone and everything around then it's definitely time for a change in focus. Pay attention to the things in life that bring you joy and refocus your energy on this. Will this change what is happening in your life? No, it won't, but it will change how you react to it. It will change how it effects you.

All appears to change when we change. -Henri Frdric Amiel