AN UNDISTRACTED MIND FULL
AN UNDISTRACTED MIND TORRENT

But rather than marching around with a Tee-shirt that proclaims I am a sucker for irrelevancy and proud of it! I suggest discovering the magic in having a simple, self-uninterrupted life and being in a smooth flow that feels eternal and entrancing. But Stanford sociologist Clifford Nass has a point when he dubs multitaskers as being “suckers for irrelevancy.”įocusing and health. And that where the healthy adult’s attention span was 40 minutes, it has now dwindled to 10 minutes. It takes a while to comprehend where you’d left off… did you eat the sandwich or not… must have the bank statement printed out… fill petrol in the car….įamiliar? Researchers reckon that each external interruption increases self-interruption by eight percent. Eventually, you get back to your complex project and gaze at it unseeingly. Meanwhile, you check out your e-mails lest something important has come up. Midstream, you get a few calls and answer them as you absentmindedly chew your sandwich. Feeling famished, you wander towards the pantry to pick up a sandwich, and remember you haven’t texted your friend the time you’d be dropping in that evening. You may find this everyday scenario a no-big-deal one: ‘you’re working on a complex project and you remember you haven’t eaten. Yet, ‘self-interruptions’ can seem pretty harmless and innocuous in themselves. And don’t let irrelevant stuff be the motor that runs your life.

AN UNDISTRACTED MIND FULL

Give your full attention to whoever you are with or whatever you do. Depression is just one shallow breath away. Thus, its perception and perspective plummet as reality gets chopped into several fragments so daunting that fear looms as we find ourselves increasingly unable to cope. The brain which can only focus on one thing at a time is forced to switch channels rapidly leaping from one subject to another with a speed and agility it is not geared for. It enables us to bask in the glow of quantity even as we quietly relegate quality to the shade. Is it really multitasking? My theory is that with the human penchant for hype, what we’ve grandly titled as ‘multitasking’ is nothing but self. Or you can pluck it gingerly but without the smooth seamlessness it had earlier. Sometimes you just can’t pick up the thread because it makes no sense - the link that made the picture whole in your understanding is lost. And after you’ve dealt with the call, your mind is in a ‘where-was-I’ limbo. Attention is such a delicate state with all the senses finely balancing like well-trained gymnasts, that unless you are a sage in samadhi, a telephone ringing can sound rude and intrusive. Researchers say that once the focus is broken, it takes 25 minutes to return to the original task. Interestingly, a new field called ‘interruption science’ addresses this issue.

AN UNDISTRACTED MIND TORRENT

Truly, a de-focused mind fuels needless torment and all that is subtle and meaningful is lost, washed away in the torrent of external meaningless details.Įach external interruption increases self-interruption by eight per cent, and where the healthy adult’s attention span was 40 minutes, it has now dwindled to 10 minutes. He simply could not grasp what he ‘read’ in the scriptures - everything was suddenly incomprehensible. Is your mind everywhere that it need not be, and is lured by so many distractions that you are restless, tired, unable to concentrate on anything? And if you’ve found yourself flipping pages of a book, your eyes looking at the sentences but not taking in a word, you would understand what the monk went through. Come back, my friend.”ĭistractions drag you down. He is not with me anymore, but everywhere that he need not be. Seeing his agitated state, his friend remarked gently, “I miss the person I knew. He worried so much and walked restlessly around the site several times a day.

As work proceeded, he became a different person. A monk known for his wisdom decided to build a temple.

An undistracted mind