Focus - Leo Babauta [37]
When we rush and set a frenetic pace, it stresses others and inspires them to rush frenetically too. Stillness has the opposite effect. It slows the world down, allows us to focus, gives us time for contemplation, for what matters most.
It takes strength to be still when others rush. It takes courage to be different, to go against the stream. But while others might think us weird at first, that's OK. Sometimes it's the weird ones that make the most difference. And soon, as our stillness inspires others to find stillness of their own, we won't be the weird ones -- we'll be the ones with wisdom.
It takes strength to find stillness when the world around us is a chaos of activity, but it's a strength that's in us, and we need only to find it. Paradoxically, it's stillness that will allow us to find that strength. Be still, look within, and it'll be there.
finding stillness
It's pretty simple, really, and you don't need me to tell you to do this: to find stillness, you just need to take the time to sit still, every day that you can.
Find a time in the morning, when the world is still fairly quiet, to sit still. Don't do anything, don't plan your day, don't check email, don't eat. Just sit, and learn to be comfortable being still.
In practice, we'll gradually find that comfort, and we'll become good at it. If mornings are no good, find time during your lunch break, or after work, or just before you go to bed.
Find a place to be still. It can be a chair in your house, or a front porch, or the roof. It can be a park bench, or the beach, or a path in the woods. Let this be a ritual that you come to look forward to.
From this small place of stillness, calm will carry to the rest of your day, radiating like a soothing force. You'll be calmer throughout the day, and learn to find little pockets of stillness everywhere: when you first start your workday, when you are ready to sit down and create, when you're about to eat, when you are ready to exercise, during a meeting, even.
Practice, regularly. Practice, and learn. Practice stillness, and the stillness becomes a canvas upon which you can paint the masterpiece of your life.
section v:
others
1: finding focus, for parents
"The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time."
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Parents might have the most difficult challenges when it comes to finding focus. Whether you're working all day and coming home to your kids, or you stay home taking care of all the household needs and very demanding children, there's almost never a quiet moment, almost never a time when you can relax, find focus, attain inner peace.
I'm a father of six children, so I know. Kids tend to turn up the volume on life, increase the chaos of this already chaotic world by an order of several magnitudes. And while I've found that it gets easier as kids get older, it never gets easy -- they still need you to drive them around a million places, to help them with a million problems, to meet their basic needs and more.
That's Ok -- chaos and work are some of the joys of being a parent. But what if we want to find focus and still be awesome parents? There's the challenge, and I'd like to offer a short guide to doing just that.
the challenges
The biggest challenge is that parents wear many hats: we have jobs, have a household to run with its unending tasks, have personal things to do (workout, read, hobbies, etc.), possibly have civic commitments (volunteer, serve on a board, work with the PTA, etc.), and yes, we have children to raise.
How do we balance these commitments? How do we find focus in one, when we are constantly being pulled at from the others? In my life, for example, I try to focus on work but have children in my home/office who want my attention. When I spend time with them, there's the temptation to check email or Twitter. When I want to spend time alone, the siren's call of work and the neverending call of my children make focusing on my solo activity a challenge.