I was in a fight with the fingerprints on my stainless steel refrigerator. They may have won the battle, but I’m winning the war.

Those fingerprints mock me in every passing. I see them, staring at me, reminding me I didn’t get it all done today. Worse, they remind me of the downward spiral of incomplete tasks lying in wait. Sure; I could wipe them off, but then there’s the dishwasher and the microwave, and the door jams, the, “God, I hope this is chocolate,” the, “Why is this sticky,” the, “It’s already time to re-organize my growing children’s clothes and closets (again),” the, “I still haven’t responded to those emails, signed up for that, hung this, painted this, planted this, moved that…the “They colored on the porch (sigh).”

I could wipe them off, those fingerprints, but I’m tired. And not in the “I need to go to sleep” kind of way (though I could definitely go to sleep)…I’m in the, “I want to sit here, do nothing and feel absolutely no guilt about it” kind of tired. I want to sit down. I want to talk about stuff beyond calendar dates and times. I want to daydream. I want to play!

All work and no play didn’t work out well for Jack, and if you can relate to these feelings, I urge you to hang up your superhero cape (mine is the apron my best friend gifted me and the blazer I take off after teaching), and tune into your superhero power of mind control (your own). That power lies in the now, how, and wow of your focus.

The “Now”

“To live for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.” Pursig’s words from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Riding are about focus. Thinking about what’s ahead is important, as he later asserts, “…without the top you can’t have any sides.” It is important to think generally about our future plans, goals, dreams, ambitions, but if our focus is future oriented, it is shallow because we miss the journey, the path along the way. The journey is where the depth, the richness of life lives—the “now.” We’ve heard it hundreds of ways…the journey, the journey. But, what does it really mean? I think it’s about focus, and focus is simply where we place our attention. Our intentions must begin with attention. If our attention centers on the top of any mountain, whether that mountain is reaching our highest potential or conquering Mount Laundry, we miss out on the now, the present, the moment…this is the journey, “just one step after the next…”

 

The “How”

That’s all well and good, and while this sounds inspiring, it’s also sounds downright irritating if you’re currently at the bottom of that mountain. I understand these words. I am inspired by them, but I still found myself alone, sobbing breathlessly in my surrender that it is not possible to get it all done. And even if I can (get it “all done,”), it comes at the cost of my well-being. It comes at my husband’s expense when I snap at him for asking me where something is. It comes at my children’s expense when I’m only half in, or when I say “in a minute” or “right after this…” one too many times. The next day comes, and we “reset” back to the beginning. I work all day to start all over the next day. How we experience the journey comes from our ability to focus. We have more control over our perceptual filters than we like to admit. Maybe this is because (forgive my necessity to quote Spiderman here), with great power comes great responsibility. When we own our focus, we become responsible for what we see, and we may not like what becomes illuminated. It is through the breakdown, illumination is offered, the steps are revealed, the “how,” if you will is provided.  I discovered two life changing things in my surrender:

1. It is not just the moments that grab us by the throat and throw us down—the moments that shock us, the ones no matter how well prepared for we still can’t deal with the reality when it hits, that bring us to our knees. It’s the mundane, the day to day pressures, the being your best, trying your hardest and failing over and over again. These are the moments we feel a different kind of pressure, an erroneous, self-imposed one. But, there’s good news here. Unlike the lack of control over those insurmountable flashes, we have control over our day to day to moments leading to my second discovery—
2. Our ability to shift our focus is as attainable as deciding to change the song you don’t like to one that makes you dance.

When we are future focused or results driven, we squander the “now” instead of savoring it. I was running a 5K on a treadmill—now for some this may seem like no big deal, but for me, this was a moment of overcoming one of many limiting beliefs: “I can’t run.” I can still feel my heart pounding and everything in me asking myself, “Why are you doing this? You can’t run, remember. ” I was proving myself right once again, and battling inside between giving in to my limiting belief or conquering it when I heard the coach enthusiastically shout, “Don’t think about how much farther you have, focus on how far you’ve come.” These words resonated with the very core of my being—and this has become my mantra. Before running, it started with meditating. “I can’t meditate.” I remember convincing myself before actually committing to the process. My head was so flooded with thoughts, I found myself more frustrated than when beginning this thing that was supposed to calm my mind down. I kept at it, and even now after twenty minutes, if I achieve even two minutes of the freedom meditation provides, I savor those two minutes instead of thinking about the other 18. This is a matter of focus. I’ve directed this shift in focus to many of my limiting beliefs. That two minutes, that 5K, those were moments of mind control, and we have an endless supply.

Just recently, my husband and I found ourselves with a pocket of time and decided to make the most of it going on a walk with our family. Things started off great—we were silent for the first couple minutes as though we were simultaneously taking in the fresh air and leaving behind the day to day obligations of work and home. We were present. We were savoring the moment. This lasted for a bit, but realizing we actually had a moment to “catch up” with each other, our present moment was robbed by future planning; our savoring turned to scheduling. Our perception of time itself changed from freedom to confinement. What were we doing “wasting” this time walking when we could be working? But something happened. This walk came after my surrender thankfully, and I stopped the stroller and the rest of our family in our tracks. My children went about their naturally present state, while my husband, looking stressed, asked me what was happening. I asked him if instead of worrying about all the stuff we had to do, if for now, we could completely let go and just be exactly where we were. He indulged me, and he added, “Then let’s not talk about stuff we need to do while we’re here,” and I obliged. The walk was magical. We saw things we hadn’t seen, discovered literal paths we hadn’t been down, and it hit me. We’re here! We’re on the journey. We’re in it! And you know I couldn’t help myself—I danced. I had changed the song, allowing me to tune into what was happening right in front of me, and because we were aware of what was happening, we were able to stretch it out all the way home. This is the one step after the next—it’s in our ability to savor the now. I practiced this all week, and I was amazed by the results.

The “Wow”

I once listened to someone preaching about sitting in traffic and how in that traffic we should focus on the destination—that would get us through the traffic. I humbly disagree with this advice. I think the mere looming thought of the destination is what predominantly makes traffic unbearable. I say, sit in that traffic. Enjoy it. You cannot control it. You can only control your mindset about it. That traffic is a present—the present. Be in it. This is the control we have over our focus, our attention. The same is true no matter what “traffic” or moment we find ourselves in. If we have somewhere to be, we will get there, but if we miss out on what’s right in front of us, we will never get it back.

Amused by this control, I tried it out on an irrational fear. It is somewhat embarrassing to admit what so many find majestic, beautiful symbols of nature have terrified me for years–dragonflies. I decided to play with my focus. I put my attention on the idea that dragonflies could be a sign of my clarity, my alignment with my highest self, and I could not believe what happened. I was talking to a student outside, after class, and a dragon fly was circling me. I have never felt more in line with nature, with myself. I even noted to my student how incredible this was—though she didn’t know I was referring to my shift in focus. I have been seeing a lot of dragon flies lately, and I think if I can do it with something trivial, I can do it with the weighted parts of life. This has got to be a superhero power. This kind of mind control is crave worthy and like a muscle can be strengthened with use. Put down the Sudoku and start using your mind control. It will change your life. OK—you can play Sudoku too, but just like that conditions your mind so does shifting your focus.

I walked right past those fingerprints on my refrigerator and thought with a somewhat defiant grin, , “Yeah, I didn’t have time for you today because I was busy having fun.”

Don’t mistake my urge to redirect your focus as an urge to be less productive. In fact, the rest of the famous line from The Shining is such, “All work and no play makes jack a dull boy, but all play and no work makes him something worse.” Changing your focus does not mean avoiding or ignoring something, it only means being mindful of where you put your attention. If I put all of my focus on the doing of life, I sacrifice the being in life.

I eventually cleaned those fingerprints, reveling in the pristine expression of my doing only for my four year old to come running through, leaving his proverbial (and literal) mark. I laughed and reveled in my being in that moment. That awareness is the shift. That shift is the “wow” of focus. I don’t know what my highest potential looks like yet, and I know as soon as I conquer Mount Laundry, it will show up waiting for me to conquer it again. I only know I want to feel good about the steps I am taking, and more importantly, I want to notice them. For the most part, we hit “reset” each day; imagine what would happen if we hit reset on our focus.