Off Track, ADHD and the Race Ahead..
February 2017
Off Track, ADHD and the race ahead……
Quite frequently, I get off track and go off into a hundred different directions. Can you say ADHD? A friend of mine was over the other day and read one of my longer pieces. He said it was hard to follow and rambled. Imagine that.
One of the main points, to me, in thinking and talking about this whole idea, “This Ain’t the Dress Rehearsal”, is the emphasis to make every moment count. This is not a new idea. Being in the moment, being mindful and slowing down to smell the flowers has been written about, told about and even sung about. That and the idea that the quality of life is not improved by speeding it up. Nevertheless, none of that diminishes the truth, poignancy and transcendent permanence of this truth; wisdom teaching, if you prefer.
To overstate the obvious, life is just a collection and sum of discrete moments. Think of it like a collection of “Now’s”. There are more than several teachings, from the biggies like Jesus and the Buddha, that literally scream this, you just need listen. Being present, in the here and now, being mindful, is an ageless and often repeated wisdom teaching. Like many such teachings, the important thing is in the remembering. Maybe all the repetition is just to hit all the frequencies, hard to know.
How many times have you read something, recognized it but had completely forgotten until that nudge, that little cosmic yellow sticky note. That happens to me a lot, especially with the so-called self-help books. I read somewhere that to say “self-help” was redundant and stupid. While that may be true, the need for being repetitive and redundant is clear if people make statements like that. They may hear, but they do not remember.
Avoiding the angst may be one of, or perhaps the most important thing you can do today. We are all bombarded by an overload of information, images and attention grabbers. Walk around and look. Is everybody head down on their phone? Today’s technology is a wonderful thing, if used properly. Using it as background noise, to avoid boredom is probably not the best use of technology, or your brain. Technology is a tool. Like the dreaded email, it gives the illusion of forward momentum. Think about that another way, how many houses have raw technology and emails built? While I haven’t checked recently, I am pretty sure not many. There are people who relentlessly check, compose, read and just generally f*@k around with emails. Email is very narrowly tolerated, at least by me. I love the excuse when one of my associates says, “Well, I emailed him/her”. What does that mean? Sh*t. I did say narrowly tolerated but just barely. Being older, not claiming wiser, I can recall the time when the fax machine was truly a wonder, right up there with the space blanket. Thing is, the space blanket made the cut. The whole tech thing has just made us fat and stupid.
Today, decide to be fully aware, fully there wherever you happen to go. Pay attention and watch what you notice. Do things look different? Are there things you notice that you never had before? Can you see a way you can be of service? Where can you best serve your fellows? In addition to being a right thing to do, the idea of service is one of, if not the, best way to get outside of yourself and heal. Miracles happen every day and they have no order of magnitude.
It may be helpful to think of purpose. Hate to just pronounce, but maybe service to others trumps yet another round of Angry Farmville Walking Dead Birds, whatever, (Did I just say Trump? Freudian slip). Anyway, helping an aging or sick neighbor has just got to be better than head down on phone or watching Bravo Channel. I don’t want to cause a deep social schism here but really. I can only hope that I have somehow said something here that will alert the social/PC police. That’s an entire 2,000 word, at least, rant. I mean, what? Maybe they should publish an updated list of various ethnic names and personal pronouns. Wouldn’t help though. There surely is no way to cease the perpetually offended. I digress.
So, to put a fork in this long story, think about being here. For your family, for your friends, for me! We are all here together and most of us can still speak to one another. Texting is a poor substitute for looking someone in the eyes and smiling. If we just spent a bit less time distracted by the world wide web, maybe we can reclaim a little bit of humanity. Your call…. Cheers.
