Distraction is born within us

We often blame social media for making us feel distracted but as Oliver Burkeman points out in his book 4000 weeks:

The overarching point is that what we think of as ‘distractions’ aren’t the ultimate cause of our being distracted. They’re just the places we go to seek relief from the discomfort of confronting limitation.

When we work on the more mundane parts of the meaningful projects we want to execute we crave for a joy that we might have lived, had we spent our time elsewhere. But because we are bound to our work and somehow know that we ought to do this meaningful work, we turn to the virtual worlds to give us that joy, to be somewhere else rather than file those documents, paint in those drawings, toil over a page of writing.

But distractions only take away the energy, even if mundane or painful, from the work and only postpone the finish line somewhere further. In some cases even destroy the project altogether. A project that has to be redone in a future time, a time that actually could have been used to enjoy in a way that the mind was craving to, but now can’t be.

Like anyone who runs knows, thinking about relieving your pain or fantasizing comfort while doing that lap will only throw your breathing off, inevitably making your running even more painful. So is with every task. Focus on it so that it gets done soon and gets done well and keep the joys of what could be, for a later time.

Time is like watercolors

What we think in our minds will always be better or worse in a way unplanned when actuality arrives. It will never go as per plan. And what a boring day it would be if we couldn’t discover anything beyond what we have planned. Giving up to this uncertainty is like giving up to watercolors, to recognise it can work its own magic beyond our plans. To listen to it and find joy in it is the best we can do. Like watercolor does its magic on paper so does time on your mind, all you need to do is allow it.

Progress with contentment

If I can’t be content here and now, I can’t be content anywhere any time. Because being content is not upto external resources it is something that is a state of mind. We might desire something in the future, we might think its what would make us happy then, a state of change from what we are now based on materiality. But we forget that with that mindset when we do get to that ideal future we will have another ideal setup just as quickly further ahead in time. Progress is of no use if there is no contentment. Yes, inadequacy is what leads to progress and drives actions, but to wholly give all our energies to inadequacies and not acknowledge that what we have can also make us feel content is a road paved with misery.

When we hate our existing phones and keep cursing it day in day out while saving up for that shiny new piece on the market we are habituating our brains to hating what we currently have. When we choose to see only the good parts of someone’s affluent or adventurous life and poison our living by feeling trapped in it as if it has nothing good to offer, we train ourselves to keenly delve, any bad that will ever happen to us in any situation. And so it goes on and on. You can live a better life in the future only if you know how to appreciate the better parts of your life right now, to be gratuitous and also to understand that some time in the future you will miss what you have right now and will have little access to getting here.