The other day, I was profoundly hit with something we all know to be true. I was on my way to WholeFoods, and I was talking to my mom on the phone, wearing headphones. Now this is a route I have driven many times, and like a lot of us driving, I was really just on autopilot. Honestly all I have to do to get to WholeFoods is go down Magazine St, and then take a left into a neighborhood. I took the left, and for some reason I thought that the next street was a one way. So when I came to the stop sign, I kinda just rolled through it — thinking there wasn’t even a possibility of a car coming down the street.
I didn’t even see this sad, red car. The type of car someone struggling buys to be practical. Ugh, it breaks my heart. It boggles me. Sure, it was dark, but how did I not see the lights of this car? I can only think that it was that arm — the blind spot — that got me, but I nearly ran into the red car and this mom got out and screamed at me. Instinctually, the ego in me wanted to retaliate, and explain myself even though my excuse was useless, but then I saw these fucking babies in the back seat and I understood her rage.
It just washed over me in that moment how important attention is, not only for road safety, but for what makes us human — our relationships to others.
I recently quit my second job, but I noticed this really fucked up thing inside me while I was serving tables one day. I had all these couples, and none of them were drinking and they were just there to try the food and enjoy each other’s company and I realized how foreign it’s become to me to just have a good time with someone while really just doing nothing. I guess that’s kinda sad, and it’s not like it would be hard to do, but it’s been awhile since I just sat down with a dude and stared at him from across the table without the distraction of a drink in my hand. Not that it even makes that much of a difference, the drink, but when you’re in the moment you kinda feel like it does. It’s becomes a prop.
But here I was, marveling at the fact that these humans were sitting down together, laughing at nothing.
It’s just amazing that in its simplest form, love is really just giving someone your attention. It’s so incredibly powerful. MindPump (my fav podcast, duh) has spoken in many episodes about how attention is due to be the skill of the century, especially in a time when we are bombarded with distractions. Whether it be our own hazy, procrastinating minds, social media or group texts.
Not being able to just be here now, without needing some external validation from our phones or some sort of altered state of reality via drugs or alcohol.
I read this article once about how social media creates this low hum of anxiety in the background for people. It’s true. In an age where we are more connected than ever, we’re really so disconnected from the important things. It’s paralyzing to unconsciously compare ourselves and our experiences to others. It’s even shameful to look at our own feeds and compare ourselves to whatever version of us that we’ve presented to the world.
It’s silly how we even think we are good at multi-tasking. I know I’m not the only one. In reality, we’re just quickly switching our attention from one task to the next, never really having a full experience. Even something as simple as watching TV or scrolling on our phones during a meal has been proven to take away from our brain registering everything we eat.
Mmmm. So in true Chelsea fashion, I came across something this morning that I feel like relates to my whole obsession with attention (not to be confused with my mastery of it, although I’ll keep trying).
It’s interesting when you pay attention to it, no pun intended. I find my attention waning in many ways. I find it escaping me in a third cup of coffee. Going pee, again. Anything that I can do to procrastinate while still “adding value” to my day. Although sometimes it’s just a perceived value, a cognitive bias.
Anyway, I came across this Matt D’Avella video titled The Secret to Superhuman Performance where he talks about peak performance and how to reach it. How to get into that FLOW state, a term coined by psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. And while you would think that to reach your flow state, you would need some a superpower-like ability of concentration, he actually talks about how we’re using less of the brain when we reach flow, because we are “shutting off noncritical structures.” Almost like when you get a flight or fight response during a stressful situation, and your digestion slows down so your body can send blood flow to your limbs in case you need them to fight.
To be in flow state is to lose your ego in an activity. Which I think is an interesting quality because something I have recently found an epiphanic moment in is the fact that having an ego doesn’t necessarily mean you are better than someone. It can also mean that you think you’re not as good as someone. It’s having an awareness of yourself, whether positive or negative.
When we’re in a flow state, we’re not expending energy on the unnecessary. We’re not concerned with what others think of us, or even what we think of us. We’re able to block it out and be totally absorbed with the task at hand. It’s a form of active meditation.
Think about it. If we’re not giving our attention to something completely, what are we giving attention to? Honestly, our ego. If I’m not listening to what you’re saying, I’m likely immersed in what I need or want in the moment, which probably isn’t all that important.
He also talks about how flow state is more common than we realize. I used to think flow state was just for runners who hit a high, or professional surfers when they catch that wave. Which is interesting, because Steven Kotler (who Matt interviews about flow) began his intrigue with flow the same way — by studying extreme sports and the rate at which all of these unheard of records were being broken in the 90s. But when we look at these extreme sports and the types of people who were breaking records, he points out that those involved didn’t have any sort of advantage. Instead, what they had was this ability to impose superb attention in what they were doing. To become totally absorbed.
Extreme sports blow my mind, but what really excites me is this ability to enter flow in every day life. Seems right in line with, well … alignment. Because it’s not about all about “peak performance” in one given moment for most of us. It’s about achieving a greater sense of overall well-being, where if we can just concentrate on one thing at a time, we can get the most out of it — out of everything. Learning how to finish a task thoroughly so that you can move on to whatever is next.
Kotler goes on to mention how we can literally tap into our own brain to cultivate this state of mind. He mentions how you can prime your brain to get into flow, by leveraging Dopamine with five triggers:
Risk, Novelty, Complexity, Unpredictability, and Pattern Recognition, with the latter being the “linking of ideas together.“
It reminds me of another fav of mine, Nir Eyal. Nir says, “Fun is looking for the variability in something other people don’t notice. It’s breaking through the monotony to discover its hidden beauty.” There’s another quote that says, “When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting.”
It all comes down to perception. Looking at things in a new way and loosing your ego — that comparison to others. Because you can get into the flow even when it comes to every day boring things — if you just get over whatever need you have for something more (your ego) that’s rushing you, and feel things as they’re supposed to be felt rather than pushing them away. It’s coming to a place of peace with whatever you’re doing and deciding to do it right the first time. To decide what to give your attention to, and to follow through. To keep that promise to yourself.
I think that’s how we come to enjoy things. Instead of seeking out ways around uncomfortable moments, we can become accepting of them so that we can move forward. You can’t enjoy your leisure time if you haven’t put in the work. We’ve all been at the place where we’re avoiding responsibilities by binging a show on Netflix, but we can’t even fully enjoy it because our mind is on what we should be doing.
Life is all about getting into your own personal flow state, but to get there you have to be able to at least cultivate your attention. And if any of those triggers can help bridge the gap between attention and flow, then even writing this can get me there. Shit, maybe I already am there. And I can stay here. Whether it be driving to Wholefoods, focusing on my workout, or writing a blog in which I link all my recent thoughts together.
It feels good.