It happened so many times to me as a kid that I would be asked by my Mom or Dad to help hold a torch as they did something. During the process, it always, and I mean always, happened that they'd suddenly complain that I was pointing the light in the wrong direction.
I'd readjust and make sure the center of the light beam was on the exact spot they wanted it. But somehow in just a few minutes/seconds, they'd be complaining about the same thing again.
You can probably relate to this yourself.
How did the torch always manage to lose focus on what it should be locked on?
I've distilled it down into two things; Distractions and Stress/Discomfort.
This is a message about those two things.
STRESS
Let's start with the easier one to manage, shall we?
I've found that in many of those scenarios, one reason I couldn't manage to keep the light beam on the right spot for long was that my hand was in quite an unnatural position. So even after I had realigned, my hand and arm would begin to slip back into a position they were comfortable being in.
It's kind of the same thing in life, if we don't learn to feel comfortable where we're supposed to be, we'll naturally find it hard to keep our focus and achieve the progress we should be making.
On the other hand however, if we're finding it incredibly hard to keep our focus at our posts, it could also be a sign, that we should carefully check if we're where we should be.
DISTRACTIONS
More dominantly however, I noticed that it was plainly a loss of concentration on the responsibility I was assigned that usually made me point the torch at the wrong spots(and I say loss, not lack because I was always focused at the beginning).
It was never really that hard, all I had to do was bear in mind that I was supposed to be pointing "here" not "there". But there'd always be these distracting thoughts; my mind would wander away from what I was doing and I'd therefore end up pointing the torch elsewhere.
Distractions are so easy to fall for in everything we do. One disjoint thought is enough to lead us into a barrage of other thoughts that'll keep us away from what we should actually be doing... Same goes for sounds, sights and feelings...
We must have some kind of mechanism that calls us back to reality, bringing us back to what we should be doing.
We should constantly remind ourselves of who we are and what we're striving to achieve.
Praying, writing, reading, meditating, all the activities we have to do will never be optimally effective if we don't overcome distractions.
And we won't be able to actualize our life goals either.
.
Note that distractions are not conquered once and for all; it's more of a continuous process than a one-off battle.
No, it will not be smooth, but it'll be worth it, when we look back on how far we've come one day.
Will that day come?
That's up to me;
That's up to you.
.
Don't forget to keep exploring!
Theophilus Oluwape Alagbe
Come Find Me, I’ll be waiting!
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