It was a long, tiring period of insanity.

I had started my journey of realigning my focus—and this piece of writing was born.

If not to outpour and describe that period briefly, I would say I experienced the following points regularly:

>> Less control on the direction of thoughts—like a train going off the track and running in any direction, but not a destination.

>> Frequent distractions that did not provide joy, rather ending with a feeling of displeasure and bringing out the anxiousness.

>> Sudden bursts of thoughts with confusion on what to react to first, because everything felt important, urgent, and out of order. It felt like a trap from the mind and for the mind.

These scenes were checkpoints, telling me to realign my focus.

What was happening?

I was reacting to almost everything.

We experience a natural filter when we focus. We react to certain things, and others we ignore. Everything depends on our interests, wants, and needs. We react as per our suitings. But often, we find our focus running outward continuously.

The explanation is simple: our fast-changing world, constantly demands our attention, and we are more tempted to focus outward rather than inward. And temptation is not just simply bad, it has practical uses in personal and professional spheres. Making sense of changing times and understanding what it all means for us personally is a basic requirement for planning our personal growth.

How can we hope to excel in our little worlds if we are not aware of what’s happening in our little worlds?

The temptation to focus outward is validated here. The same applies to industries and our professions as well. And because the cause is so common and basic, we all kinda go through this journey of realigning our focus. It’s just that some of us do it more consciously than others.

Focusing inward is not better than focusing outward or vice-a-versa—whatever suits us at the moment is fine.

We all have our own comfortable ratio of focusing outward to focusing inward. Both are needed for their own benefits and uses.

A little example would be focusing inward teaches us how to take care of ourselves in a better way, and focusing outward teaches us kindness and empathy. Both the lessons are important equally. We need to learn both and be good to ourselves as well as others. Practicing any one of the lessons won’t be healthy.

 

Continuous focus for a long time brings confusion and dizziness—we must rest.

~

~

There is a kind of growth that comes only when we are resting—experience it.

It is magical.

Coming back to the temptation of focusing outward, its constancy makes us ignore the inward focus, thus it is trending now to focus inward and its importance is highlighted often. So today, most of us are aware of the importance of focusing inward, giving importance to what is inside through meditation, yoga, behaviour practices, perspective shaping, and many other means. Though mostly, it is about our own personal balance.

Here is a simple two word mantra to help realign our focus.

PC: peace and calm

If we can find peace and calmness, our focus is on the right path.

I hope some of us can relate and are inspired to begin a journey with our own focuses.