Being mindful

Economist and psychologist Herbert A. Simon put succinctly the relationship between information and attention: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” The world that we live in today is seeing the proliferation of information like no other time in history. While earlier people would get no information more exciting than “the weather was particularly windy today in the afternoon” as they drank their evening tea and settled in for a cozy night as the sun set over the village, today we take in more groundbreaking news on medical science, technology, human behavior etc. even before we leave for work.

There are two aspects to this; firstly, the world is doing lots of things that earlier it did not (as much), but more importantly, the world has now (thanks to the internet) the option to broadcast whatever it is doing to the rest of the world every second of the day that it does those things. Earlier, people used to get very little that caught their attention and sparked their curiosity, today we are inundated with advertisements, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, News apps, Netflix, Email, Twitter, (good old) TV and the never ceasing “ting!” of the WhatsApp message. The world will never be bored again. I feel particularly fortunate at this, because it allows me to delve into the areas that I like; documentaries, music, science & technology and engage with likeminded folk of such topics of discussion all from the comfort of my home.

But I have realized one thing; with so much coming at me, I am able to get only a glimpse of what it is before it passes by and the next thing comes forward. The people of today (especially the young ones) are the most lacking in concentration. This is because while the world was giving us this flood of information and entertainment, it took away our ability to focus on and truly be involved in the thing at hand. With the constant buzzing of our phones and now smartwatches and in the future of God knows what we are the most distracted generation. It is time to become aware of this and take steps to remedy it.

What this means for you is that as you live, try to be a 100% involved in what you are doing and what is happening at that moment. This will enable to you to not only take the right action and enjoy life a lot more as it happens, it will also make you acutely aware of your time, you will be aware of living and will never say “I do not know where the day went”, because you would have captained every moment in it. The saints and sages of old have always spoken about the importance of living in the present, earlier this meant not getting distracted by the past (what is done and cannot be changed) or the future (what is not known), now this also means not getting distracted by technology.