Pay attention to your life

Where you put your attention is where your energy goes - the ideas, circumstances, people, places, events and inspiration will follow.

You get good at what you like doing. If that is working out, gardening, or picking out great wines, so be it. Shakespeare’s Hamlet says “ This above all; to thine own self be true” is timeless for we do know when we feel good for it’s a true feeling of happiness, joy, satisfaction, fulfillment, or gratification when we are in the right place and with the right people and doing the right things for us.

So where do we put our attention? And how do we know when we have energy for some things and not others. Here’s what I’ve discovered. When I can’t not do something like garden, workout, or find great wines, it has my attention and my energy flows easily. In contrast, if I apply my energy to something that does not really hold my attention, I drain my energy fast.

The difference is that I get more energy from those ideas, circumstances, people, places, and events that inspire me that from those that do not. Sounds simple enough but ever notice that you don’t have energy for some people, places or events? That’s important. Spend less of your attention on events and people where your energy is depleted. Spend more time where you enjoy people and events and see what happens to your energy.

Life is after all a lot about energy. How do we spend it? How do we get more when we start running low? Our job in life is to use our energy (ourselves) for how we decide our life is to be…. or not to be.

That is the question. Hamlet speaks to us again.

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Updated 7/10/06