“I want to pay attention to my studies. I want to pay attention to my work. I want to pay attention to my health. I want to pay attention to my family.”
This and that. We all have a lot of things to pay attention to in this life. While a few I mentioned were a little wider, the perspective is simple.
When I completed my education around 4 years back, I had one thing on my mind: to pay attention to find ways to make money and live. I tried finding a few ways and got paid for less than what I did, and that went for a whole year and a half.
One thing I realised at that phase was that I was paying attention to only one thing I wanted, and I didn’t worry if it drained me, or took away my passion for anything (which I hadn’t discovered yet).
When I thought about attention, I thought about one thing: making money.
I didn’t pay attention to:
What my life wants to look like.
Who I wanted to surround myself with.
What skills should I learn ahead of time to even get better.
I didn’t pay attention to anything other than having a job and making some bucks, and finally spending it on some required, and mostly unnecessary needs.
But that 8–10 hours standing at the job, getting things done, helping others to appeal good, and trying to find peace somewhere in that world was bullshit. Totally.
Fortunately, I quit that job after a few months. I was sick, my health was in a bad state, and even worse, I couldn’t pay attention to anything. I was blank. (No wonder I was in that stage, after finding one way to get what I wanted and spending all of it like…)
Even harder thing at that point was how do I share this news with my parents, because they had expectations, and this was my first trial, I believe, and fu*ked it up.
It happened the hard way.
But for the next 2 months, I gave my brain some space to do nothing, but think about what I really want to do in my life for at least the next 3–5 years. Now I paid attention to not just the result but the process I’d go through, my day-to-day life. Professionally. Personally. All around.
After my realisation that I wanted to do something related to content, which I loved doing even during my college days, was my path (that’s a whole different story I’d cover some other day).
I luckily landed my first media job.
I got hold of the lane I was walking to.
I was surprised to some extent by how happy I was.
As young as you are, you are a fool, smart, and inexperienced.
The only way you will get better at paying attention to the right things is by experiencing as many things as you can in your life. This is something I’ve seen in my last 4–5 years.
Pay attention multidimensionally.
Today’s attention should be something your future self should be proud of.
Through the experiences, and a couple of great people I’ve met on this journey so far, have led me to discover my values, my passion, my obsessions, and exactly where I shouldn’t be spending my attention and time.
One way to look at this writing is to reflect on your early days, where you paid attention to some noisy things, which could have been better spent elsewhere. Question yourself.
Another way to look at this writing is to learn how not to be obsessed with paying attention to the result directly.
I’d recommend the first way. Gives you way better clarity. :)