So it’s 2012, and today’s a school-day. “Up again, old heart”: time to gather some fresh experience, to summon what Winifred Gallagher has called “the old-fashioned quality of grit,” which
may be a better predictor of real-world performance. Attention’s mechanics ensure that when you lock on your objective, you enhance that aspiration and suppress things which compete with it, which helps you to stay focused.
How quickly reliable habits and routines withdraw, when we relax our grit and unlock our focus. This morning I locked on the objective of escaping those seductive flannel sheets before dawn’s early light. Mission difficult, but accomplished – and immediately rewarded with the pleasure of a still and peaceful world all to myself for a few delicious pre-dawn minutes. Must do it again tomorrow, and tomorrow. The pace only becomes petty when those minutes are taken for granted or forgotten. Must not misplace that precious ticket again.
In life’s best moments we wake up.
Tags: attention
