Paying attention doesn’t seem like a difficult thing to do, does it? I have never thought that it was until a couple of days ago. Something in my quiet time sparked a thought in my mind about “just paying attention”.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered about how often I am NOT paying attention? Of course, there is no easy way to measure that but I decided to do the next best thing. I decided that, for an entire day, I would really pay attention. When my children talked to me, I would stop what I was doing and look at them (except when I was driving). When my husband talked to me, I would look him in the eye. When I was reading the paper, I would not listen to the TV. When I was working on a project, I would not be plugged in to my iPod.
I cannot begin to tell you what a difference this one small thing made in a single day! My son talked openly about school. My daughter and I laughed about something totally silly. The constant competition for my attention between the 2 of them seemed to vanish for the afternoon. In fact, when my husband got home from work, his exact words were, “What’s with all this harmony around here today?”
I think I’ll try it again today and see what happens. I can’t promise that paying attention will solve all problems but I challenge you to do it for a day or half a day or a few days. Let me know how your experiment goes. If we all have the same dramatic experience, we may be on to something!
