Tag Archives: Paying Attention

The Power of Presence

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butterfly from somewhere else“It’s all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seem to work in whispers and small kindnesses.” ~Charles de Lint

In our review of the skills we carry in our kindness toolbox, let’s look at a couple more.

Paying Attention

An essential skill of kindness is paying attention, being present to what’s happening around us. Not being so absorbed in our devices or our own internal drama that we don’t notice the car trying to merge, the person whose hands are full whom we could hold the door for, or a child in distress seeking our attention.

Beyond noticing our opportunities to extend kindness, it’s also being present to receive the kindnesses others offer us. At the library recently, I saw a man wait to hold a door for a woman who was a few steps behind him. She didn’t even look up from her phone, just walked through the open door into the library without a word. I’m sure he held the door because he wanted to be courteous and considerate; he didn’t do it to be thanked. And let’s give her the benefit of the doubt: she probably wasn’t being deliberately rude; it’s likely she didn’t even notice him, so occupied was she by her device. But what an opportunity missed. At least three people could have felt the endorphins created by kindness: he, the giver; she, the receiver; and I, a witness. Each of us would have had a burst of pleasure over something so small as the courtesy of a held door.

I’m not going to get on a soapbox about all the things people miss because they’re addicted to their phones. It’s a choice. When people realize how much actual life they’re missing, they’ll modify their habits.

It’s not just our devices that deter us from noticing kindness opportunities. We can be just as absorbed in the dramas we manufacture internally: Continue reading →

A Call for Radical Kindness and Fierce Civility (Part 1)

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Attribution: Donna Cameron[Dear friends, at a time when despair and hope alternately pervade my days—and possibly yours, too—I find I am writing to understand, to connect, and to seek solutions. I wrote this article in the hope that it might help those of us who believe fervently in kindness, yet also fear the bleak days ahead. As my anxiety grows, my attention span seems to shrink, so rather than one long blog post, I’m going to be offering three short ones over the next week. Here’s part one.]

A Call for Radical Kindness and Fierce Civility

Another election looms. For months, we’ve been seeing the same distressing behaviors we saw in 2016 and 2018. In the remaining days before November 3, it will only get worse. And after November 3, the divide will remain—deep, rancorous, and corroding—there is no magic outcome that will heal our nation. It’s going to be up to each of us to commit to healing.

Despite all, I still believe that kindness is how we will take back our political and social discourse and counter rampant incivility. Not a meek kindness, or a complacent acquiescence, but a bold insistence on courtesy, consideration, and respect. The more of us who recognize the power of kindness and exercise both the courage to use it and the commitment that we will not settle for less, the sooner we will turn the tide.

As I’ve said before, we’re in the midst of an epidemic of incivility. We see it in political rallies, on our streets and highways, throughout social media . . . and we see it in the ways we talk to one another and about one another. It isn’t pretty . . . and it’s disheartening to even a once-fervent optimist. Continue reading →

Tempus Fugiting? Try These Strategies for Slowing the Passage of Time

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“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” (Steve Jobs)

It’s no secret that our relationship with time changes as we age. When we’re children, time seems expansive, sprawling. Summer vacation is vast; the span between Labor Day and Christmas feels interminable. It takes forever for that special event we’ve been anticipating to finally arrive.

A few decades later, time turns on us. The seasons fly by. Birthdays accumulate like dead leaves in autumn, and instead of savoring time, we just want to slow it down.

It’s not our imaginations. Time really is perceived differently by children and adults. One reason is simply the obvious: as we age, each year is a smaller percentage of our life. When you’re ten, a year is ten percent of your lifetime; but when you’re 60, it’s less than two percent.

But there’s more to it than that. Continue reading →

My 2020 Vision

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A year from today, may we look back and say, “We’ve made the world a kinder place … together.”

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions in the traditional sense. I prefer to think about the year ahead and what I hope will be different at its end, and then set some intentions to help bring about that change. That’s how this blog was born five years ago, and ultimately how the book, A Year of Living Kindly, came into being.

This year, as I ponder the year ahead, I think about our planet, our values, and our interactions with one another. I think about the epidemic of incivility now swirling around us, and the pandemic it will likely become in the contentious months ahead.

I want to “be the change,” as Gandhi counseled. To do that, I’m recognizing that I need to step up my kindness. I need to: Continue reading →

The Vanishing Art of Paying Attention

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“Tell me what you pay attention to, and I will tell you who you are.” (Jose Ortega y Gasset)

Attribution: Donna CameronWhat do you pay attention to? I know a woman—an artist—who notices color and texture and light everywhere she goes. And she thinks about capturing it on canvas, or fabric, or even just memory. Another person—a devoted animal lover—has her radar out for dogs: big ones, little ones, quiet ones, yappy ones, puppies . . .  she adores them all and it makes her quite a canine magnet. And then there’s my acquaintance who is always on the lookout for slights, for people who disagree with him, for comments he can interpret as disrespectful or confrontational. With his detector tuned to these encounters, he tends to find offense everywhere. He lives in a perpetual state of raised hackles.

There’s even a world leader who purportedly only pays attention when the news or information he’s viewing is sprinkled generously with his own name.

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about fear as one of the biggest barriers to kindness—both to our extending kindness and our receiving it. In the comments, Janis, of the delightful Retirementally Challenged blog, observed that for her the biggest obstacle to kindness is “not being in the moment,” and thus unaware that kindness may be needed. She notes that opportunities are lost if we fail so see what’s happening around us.

Janis is right. Our own obliviousness is one of the biggest barriers to kindness. If we’re absorbed in our own private world, or our technology, we simply don’t notice that the person right in front of us needs help, or that a child may need comforting, or that a kind word could lift someone’s day. We fail to see when one person goes out of their way to help another. On the receiving end, our obliviousness prevents us from noticing a stranger’s smile, acknowledging someone who held a door for us, or even recognizing our own need for self-compassion.

Since I started thinking about, writing about, and trying to live a life of kindness, I am ever so much more aware of it—of opportunities for me to extend kindness, of kindnesses extended my way, and of kindnesses—big and small—all around me. I still miss a lot, though. I tend to spend a lot of time in my own head, and, as my husband kindly points out, I can be oblivious not just to kindness, but also to clutter, dust, thirsty houseplants, and sometimes speed limits. Paying attention requires practice.

Technology is one of the things that gets in the way of our being attentive to our surroundings and the people around us. According to a 2016 study, most of us spend about two-and-a-half hours on our smartphones daily. Heavy users—the top ten percent of phone users—spend closer to four hours, or one-quarter of their waking time, on their phones. These heavy smartphone users click, tap, or swipe their phones an average of 5,427 times a day, while the rest of us clock in at a mere 2,617 times daily. It would be interesting to find a study that further breaks down phone time into work and non-work usage. Since my own average is probably about five touches a day, and perhaps five minutes—if that—I am clearly not holding up my end of this devil’s bargain.

I recognize that to decry technology is to declare myself a Luddite or at least a very old fogey. I don’t believe I’m either. But I am mindful of something that I tell strategic planning clients with some frequency: Everything we say “yes” to means we must say “no” to something else, so we need to think long and hard about what is most important to us and whether that’s where we’re putting our time, attention, resources, and energy. What are we saying no to as we say yes to a five-inch screen and perpetual connectivity?

There are good reasons to stay connected to our devices, but it’s worth asking occasionally if we are making a conscious choice or simply succumbing to addiction.

What we choose to pay attention to creates the world we live in. If our radar is focused on dogs, we will live in a world of laughing golden labs, cuddly collies, and frolicking puppies. If we look for slights and reasons to be angry, our world will be rife with insult and offense. If we pay attention to gratitude, we will find ourselves surrounded by things to be grateful for. And, if our attention is on kindness, there will be no end to our opportunities to experience or extend kindness.

I believe there are several “secrets” to living a good life. High on that list is the simple—though not necessarily easy—habit of paying attention. It all begins with choosing to be present and choosing what we will pay attention to.

“We become what we love.  Whatever you are giving your time and attention to, day after day, is the kind of person you will eventually become.” (Wayne Muller)