The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing. ~ German Proverb
How many times have we looked back in life and said within ourselves or aloud...’If I had only paid attention!’ Rather than being caught up in youthful lusts and petty cliques we would have concentrated on the more important things...like getting an education! Oh, the power of being able to focus on the task at hand! If there is one thing we seem to lack in this day of multi-tasking is FOCUS! The ability to remain steadfast on a thought toward a goal seems to be lacking in our culture. In college I remember a professor saying World War III started immediately after WWII. He said it wasn’t the a battle of tanks and guns, but it was a battle for the mind! And when I take a look around, this statement seems to stand true. Look around and its not very difficult to see how scattered we have become. Running to and fro, here and there, and heltered skeltered. Whether we are just trying to make ends meet or keep up the Jones’s down the street, life has become one hectic ‘rat race’. From video games to cell phones, our lives are inundated to something and anything to take our minds off the task at hand! Lately, it seems, if we just get through the day, we count ourselves a success. Our minds have become so scattered and removed from any calmness of focus, to pick up a good book is difficult because our minds are forced to become calm and to a racing mind, calm seems abnormal!
I have heard the first rule of focus is this: “Wherever you are, be there!” Wow! Simple but seemingly difficult to implement in this hectic fast pace multi-tasking day and age we live in. It is difficult for us to concentrate on concentrating. When was the last time you were someplace and you were just there, focused and concentrating on the one task at hand. It seems wherever we are we are not there, but we are somewhere else! Yes, physically we are there, but mentally, we are paying the bills, going over our ‘to do’ list, or worrying about what may never happen. Its no wonder we always feel like ‘we are spinning our wheels’. We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet. We are so caught up in the trivial we have lost sight of the target and it is more than likely the problem lies in the fact that we have lost focus on where we are going and are wanting to go, leaving an overflowing of trivial problems in our lives. Is it possible if we were to re-obtain our focus that many of these problems would no longer hound or hinder us?
Its time we clean off our tables and clear up our minds of mindless fodder and refocus on the true purpose of life. Long ago, you had a sense of purpose and direction in which you were heading. What happened? You used to shoot your arrows at a fixed target, but today you don’t even shoot your arrows, let alone draw back your bow! No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated and disciplined. Not only is the fool known by the multitude of his words, but the immature mind hops from one thing to another. It is only the mature mind that has the ability to focus and seeks to follow through. I know we have hurts, pains, and discomforts, but how many of those have been caused because we lost our follow through? How much refuge is in our lives now because our attention has been lost while pandering to the inconsequential. To move forward, we must shake ourselves and step out of the ‘rat race’ and back into ‘that place’ where the target is in view! We must not just get our aim right, but once again put forth the energy needed to draw back the bow of purpose, by no longer letting what we can’t do interfere with what you can do! The past is the past. Mistakes and disappointments are building blocks and should be used to refuel our passions and stepping stones into the future.
Haven’t we have learned that if we aim at nothing we are sure to hit nothing! The secret of our strength lies in our ability to concentrate. King David said in the Psalms, “My heart is fixed!” Was it not our Lord Jesus Christ who ‘for the joy that was set before him endured the cross!’ When all others and even his disciples tried to convince Him the cross was NOT where he was going, he rebuked them, and how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.’Anthony Robbins said this, “Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.”
"Only that day dawns, to which we are awake." (Henry David Thoreau) A new day has dawned and there you sit in your swivel desk chair. What are you going to do with this day? Once of the greatest generals of all time, George S Patton said, “No good decision can be made in a swivel chair.” Stand up. Stretch and push that swivel chair aside. Today is a new day! Today is the day of salvation!
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