The Joy of Attention

  When I experience difficulties at work, I tend to feel distracted and want to rest my mind but at the same time, I feel as though I need to have figured something out in order to give myself permission to rest or do something else. What I have come to experience in myself, however, is that solutions are not so forthcoming, and nor are they predictable. Instead, they seem to come in small "bursts", with no predictable pacing or timing. That's why I think it's important to simply wait---but try to be productive in the midst of that waiting. This is because the waiting I am referring to is deeply productive. It looks for pieces of the puzzle, sifting through various experiences until it arrives at a conclusion or an idea that is worth trying out. The worst thing one can do in that situation is to dissipate the energy of waiting through various distractions such as Youtube or whatnot. The energy of thought, the determination to know the answer, etc. need to be sustained through some kind of focus, even if it means resting the focus by doing something less strenuous (yet productive) while still finding the answers.

   People often forget that creative solutions rely on many outputs and are often the result of a synthesis of ideas across disciplines. To rest from one area doesn't mean that we simply slack off--rather, it might mean drawing from another wellspring in order to feed the current one. So in that sense, it's important to sustain attention, and even make a joy out of the experience of having a tight beam of attention that lacks a clear object (which is essentially a feeling of confusion or "being lost"). Instead of rejecting that feeling of being lost, one must sustain the necessary attention to still remain productive in the midst of that.