Category: Attention
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Blind Spots
All of us have a blind spot where our optic nerve exits the eye. So why do we not have a floating black spot in front of our eye? Because our eye covers over and fills that area, so that we can’t see the gap. We are blind to our own blind spots. (If you’ve…
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Inspiration is Perishable
You’ll never get to read many of my blog entries. A tsunami of ideas rush through my head in any given week and I often tell myself that I should write a blog. I’ll even write the initial premise to remind myself about it later. But when I return, the idea is still interesting but…
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Adapting to Life
Waiting for a bus, you’re reading the newspaper. There was a tragic accident where the driver became paralyzed. Horrified, you anxiously read the next article about a mechanic who just one the lottery. Your friend sitting next to you says, “I’ll bet you $100 that two years from now, the two of them will be…
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The Objects of Fear
I am not afraid of waking up to a stranger standing over my bed at night. While working out, the TV had a closed caption news report on the concealed carry permits in Phoenix. They showed the training that people go through as well as several with permits as well as interviews with several of…
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Consumed by Abundance
Everyday we go toe-to-toe with information overload. Never has so much information been available right at our finger tips. But it isn’t just too much information, it’s too much of a lot of things: food, free time, and entertainment to name a few. Previously, we consumed scarce goods, now we are consumed by abundance. It’s…
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The Unasked Questions
The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out. – Proverbs 20:5 (NIV) Recently, I’ve been working on improving my attention management. My friend, David Delp, has been teaching me his system called “Designing a Balanced Life“. It’s true his approach is great, but one of the…
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The Stress Blinders
Imagine trying to drive a car while looking through binoculars. You’d be able to read that bumper sticker in the distance, but you might not finish it before running into something. Several books that I’ve read recently all point to this effect of stress – it causes a narrowing of our perception. We want this…
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The Art of Trimming
Walking home from my spinning class this morning, I noticed a man trimming a tree. Not an extraordinary event, but it struck me: Here was a pile of vibrant green leaves on the ground and when you looked at the tree, it was still full of the same verdant leaves. After the gardener cut the…
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Dealing With Injustice: Swallowing Poison Pills
There is almost nothing more frustrating than someone taking advantage of you. I was reminded of this yesterday when I boarded a bus and received improper change. I didn’t notice until I was back in my seat and started obsessing about the injustice. Then I sat back and realized that the bus driver may have…
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Where Chocolate Goes to Die
Perhaps no one is like my wife and me, but we have a place in our pantry where chocolate goes to die. Actually, for quite some time, we had a place where all snack food would go to die. We would eat most of a particular snack food, but then since no one wanted to…