Observations on paying attention

I think I've always been a thinker.  I've always been interested in the stuff behind the stuff...the subtext...the nuggets...the tiniest building blocks of things that actually are tiny only in size.  My Mom always called me "eagle eye".  

Even though I have truly terrible eyesight, whenever something was lost, I could somehow always find it by getting quiet and paying attention and noticing everything I could.  That's how I found the stuff.  My earliest memory is of finding a contact lens in a high pile, almost shag, carpet that I'm pretty sure was navy blue.  My most recent memory is of retracing steps to find a lost credit card at night in grass that needed to be cut.  

I really like it. Observing.  It's now a large component of who I am and I really love it about myself.  It's what I relied on heavily when I was learning how to be a musician.  The first instrument I learned to play was the piano and my Mom was my first teacher, far before my feet could touch the pedals. Later I grew curious about my body as my instrument.  Learning how to sing required a huge amount of refined self observation. It's an instrument played mostly by feeling and then also by listening.  It's fantastic and incredibly difficult to do well.

The ability to observe plays a large role in my work now, too.  As a professional and a coach I am observing people, processes, choices and behaviors all the time.  It's truly fascinating work.  With the right amount of observation and the ability to translate it into productive action, I see real progress made.  It's wonderful to be a part of.

There is a trend present in our lives that I am not the only one to observe and certainly have participated in myself at times.  I call it a trend away from paying attention.  

Many people (though not all), live their lives distracted.  Folks are paying attention to activity on their phones, on social media, on drama and fear on TV & in their lives, on superficial measurements of worth, on comparison, on accumulation...I could go on.  People are spending so much of their time and energy with these things that they become habits and then they become personal defaults.  People are making serious and consequential decisions from a place of deep distractedness.

If I tried to sing that way no good sound would ever come out.

One of the most profoundly wonderful things about observation is that it lays the foundation for choice.  How amazing that as a part of being alive, we all get to make choices.  For example, I chose to write about the power of observation today and to share my joy in all the positive applications.  As always, my intention with sharing my own observations of myself and those I encounter is to make an offering of connection with whoever reads this.  

So, for now I'm going to keep taking the time to stop and really get curious and keep searching the navy blue shag carpet of life, probing for whatever is there waiting for me.