It’s like learning to drive a car or land an airplane: you look well ahead of the car or down the runway because you are going to end up where you are looking. Don’t believe me? Try to drive down the freeway while you stare at the ground right in front of your hood. (No, don’t try that! I’m making a point here…) The analogy to the trajectory of your future is apt: Life proceeds in the direction of your attention.

Look Where You’re Going

My dad used to say that to me when I was very young and stumbled over (or into) something. As is the case with the many parental admonitions that form our nascent superegos, I still can hear his voice and see the bemused look on his face as he reminded me to pay attention.

Learning to thrive, it turns out, has much in common with learning to walk. In both cases, shortsightedness is likely to result in a fall.

This precept is valid regardless of your chosen destination. If you want to be a musician, you have to direct a great deal of your future efforts towards learning how music works, and practice the techniques necessary to master your instrument. If your goal is to be an electrician, there is a time-tested apprenticeship system in place to assure that your focus is directed towards the skills and knowledge needed to safely and efficiently move energy according to code.

You may be thinking that this is all quite self-evident, but here’s the corollary: If you have no focus, you will end up no-where.

The fact is that life moves forward, in line with the passage of time. That is, you are going somewhere whether you plan for it or not.

You know “that guy” (or perhaps you are that guy), that took the easiest classes in high school, got whatever job presented itself at the time, had no plans for college or a trade or really, anything in terms of life goals.

The plan-of-no-plans, of “playing it by ear” is surely convenient and sounds like an organic, stress-free, bohemian approach to life, but “that guy” tends to end up broke, lonely and depressed.

Sitting alone in your room playing video games is a dim, distant and distorted reflection of a real life.

It May Sound Simple, But

Yes, I realize that there are people who - through familial connections, inheritance or blind luck - have no plans yet manage a comfortable life style, but those people are statistically insignificant outliers and irrelevant to this dissertation. And they are frequently not very happy.

Almost no one plans to end up living in the proverbial basement of mom’s house, yet many find themselves in exactly that situation. Why?

Aside from the ennui and disillusionment attendant a currently absent middle-class and other socioeconomic crises (fodder for a completely different article), the primary culprit is distraction.

We are besieged by forces that complete for our attention at a historically unique level. It has never been easier to dilute - and destroy - our focus than it is today.

What is the first thing you do when you wake up? The last thing you do before you close your eyes at night? What do you do when waiting in line for your latte, or (tragically) while you are out to dinner or (more tragically) driving your car?

We scroll. We text. We watch videos and do anything else that might provide the next dopamine fix that comes so easily from the blessing/curse of the supercomputers that live in our pockets.

Don’t kid yourself that these $1,000+ devices are the exclusive purview of the well-heeled. Every kid over the age of 8 (and many who are younger) has at least one. Every “undomeciled” person with a cardboard sign asking for food is holding that sign with one hand and surfing social media with the other (OK, that may be overstated, but not by much).

What I’m trying to say is that it is much more difficult to maintain focus, to pay attention to a meaningful goal, today than ever before.

What Cost, Focus?

I don’t want to be the person who grouses about a situation without offering a possible solution. What does it take to cut through the mental clutter, marketing hype, self-doubt, boredom and existential crisis of meaninglessness that is magically dispelled by the drug of distraction?

Mindset, based on discipline and focus.

You have the option - I would go as far as to say the obligation - to choose that upon which you will focus your attention. The discipline part is the mental effort, the commitment to a better future.

If you have identified a desire to change (your job, your relationship, your mom’s basement no longer serve you in the way you had once settled for), all you have to do is decide to refocus your mindset.

Is it really that simple? Yes.

Is it easy? Nope. Not at all.

You will have to develop the discipline to get your butt out of bed, go to the gym, enforce a phone-free zone in your bedroom, at meals, (for God’s sake) while driving.

Instead of scrolling, read something related to your life goals. Want to binge YouTube videos? Have the gumption to restrict them to the endeavors you have chosen as worthy of your attention.

And here, as they say (and “they” are correct), is the hard part: you must endure loss - sometimes significant- to gain the greater prize.

You will lose your tendency to waste the precious moments of your life. You will likely lose inches from your waist. You may find it necessary (but not sufficient) to lose your dead-end job. You will definitely lose mindless dopamine quests in favor of the skills and knowledge needed for a better future.

Unfortunately, you may be forced to lose relationships with those who would bind you to the “same-old, same-old” comfort of your old, convenient lifestyle.

When people see you start to rise, you will inevitably hear some version of, “What, are you better than us now?”

You have my permission to answer, “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

Show Me the Way

The final, “big” question: Now that you have focus, where should you aim it?

Remember that you are (terrifyingly!) free to choose your own meaning; your purpose.

In a world where you can be anything, choose to be something worthy of the gift of your consciousness.

The pursuit of your purpose is the most important quest of your life, and far too involved to be comprehensively addressed here (feel free to peruse the dozens of articles and hundreds of posts I have dedicated to the subject by visiting my website).

But once you have defined (even loosely and tentatively) your purpose, devote the full measure of your attention to its fulfillment. Your health, wealth, happiness and the world at large are counting on it.

If (when) you start to waiver, remember why you are doing this:

Attention

Life proceeds in the direction of your attention.



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To learn more about how to use these concepts or to inquire about working with me, you can contact me on the Hardcore Happiness website, the comments section on my Substack or Medium accounts or the Hardcore Happiness blog page. If you have found value in this article, follow my Instagram account for daily insights, or my X account for occasional tweets. To support this community, you can Buy Me A Coffee or donate through my Patreon account.

- JWW