Please pay attention

Jul 30, 2010, 12.00am IST
MARGUERITE THEOPHIL.

We have needed to 'originate' the Slow Food Movement to counter the life-attitude connected with fast-food culture; only then do we feel we can get to something that we once had, but lost! What we had lost is the attention that goes into creating and savouring a nourishing meal.

While previous years were all about multitasking, we now hear and read people asking us to please "uni-task", coining an odd-sounding term to remind us to pay attention, even enjoy, each thing we do. It would be funny it if weren't so sad. Nicolas Malebranche, a 17th century philosopher said, "Attention is the natural prayer of the soul." If that is true, most of us have forgotten how to really pray.

Thich Nhat Hanh in The Miracle of Mindfulness , writes about how he and a friend once sat under a tree sharing a tangerine. The friend began to talk about plans for the future, becoming so immersed in it that he literally forgot about what he was doing in the present. Popping a section of tangerine in his mouth, before he had begun chewing, he lifted another slice to his mouth again. The teacher gently suggested, "You ought to eat the tangerine section you've already taken," startling him into realising what he was doing. "...as if he hadn't been eating the tangerine at all... If he had been eating anything, he was 'eating' his future plans."

Educators speak of the shrinking attention span of young people today, but few schools teach children the gift of savouring the moment. There are some parents who say that the capacity for attention is theirs to claim.

There is another aspect to attention: attention to others around us.

Psychotherapist Pierro Ferrucci refers to attention as a precious gift. People who are suffering may need advice, diagnoses, interpretations and interventions, but still more do they need sincere and complete attention. He points out that attention, being completely available, may well be the most coveted gift: "We silently hope that someone will want to do that for us... Attention is a type of friendliness and the lack thereof is the worst kind of rudeness. Attention is the means that allows us to let friendliness flow. Anyone who can't give others attention, will never be friendly. Attention gives energy, while the lack of attention takes it away."

From yet another angle, we learn that what we give attention to grows. Even when it does not actually grow, it certainly seems to, because we tend to see little else.
Often people I meet in therapy mistakenly think they must only focus on what's wrong. Sure, things could be wrong; even very wrong. But is that all that's happening in one's life? When they make a list also about what's going right, they are shocked at how long or how rich it actually is! Life is a mix of what we label good or bad not to mention that there is often good in the bad and also, on closer look, some bad perhaps in the good.
We need to learn to pay attention to our entire life, not just parts of it. Focusing only on problems is draining, exhausting. Knowing there is already some good shifts us out of a 'poor me' place and pumps us with energy to work on what we need to work on.
The writer is a Mumbai-based personal growth coach and workshop leader. weave@vsnl.net