Distractions

They are all around us, They are invisible until we really don’t want them. And we really don’t want them, they are distractions.

In a perfect world, we’d be able to push aside distraction from our focus when we don’t want them. In a perfect world, we’d be able to not arouse distraction from within. In a perfect world, everyone would have decent civic sense. But this is not a perfect world and we are not able to push distractions aside. Infact the sheer effort of concerning yourself with a distraction brings it that much more into focus. We are constantly bombarded with distraction both from within and outside. While most of your outside distraction can be mitigated with a tap of a button on your phone, how do you prevent your inner curiosity from wanting to learn about real estate price in beirut.

The answer is not in how, it is in why? Why we prefer getting distracted which is what we don’t want over working towards our goal which is what we really want. The answer is simple. Our brain prefers quenching the thirst of curiosity that lies in distractions over continuing with the same daunting task. Here is one more ruffle in the bush evolutionary paramble to store in your arsenal when you have to say something smart. Suppose a cavemen is working on sharpening his tool - he has been at it for 20 minutes. There is slight ruffle in the bush - what kind of cavemen is more likely to survive in this situation. The one that ignores that trifling ruffle of a distraction and keeps working on the much important task of sharpening - or one that sprouts curiosity of finding out what such slight ruffle could reveal. Thats exactly what we are doing with our work. Our curiosity wins over our determination.

So what do we do - how do we win this war? We don’t, like all smart men, we switch to the winning side. We make curiosity our friend. We get curious about what this work could result in. We get curious about different ways to be employed in work. We get curios about what would happen if I work diligently. And that is how you work diligently.