Time and Focus

Our school English Grammar had a section called Reference to Context (RTC).

Very irritating during school but one of the few things that has extreme relevance in real life. But alas, equally missed because many didn’t pay attention to that “portion” during school.

Today, most conversations take place without a reference. Agreements and disagreements stem ‘out of context’.

In this article however, the RTC is TIME & FOCUS.

Take a situation where you’re in a certain frame of mind and see and connect with some interesting piece on social media. The immediate urge to share it with your friends is easily executable with the help of smart phones and easy access. 

Never mind the frame of mind of the recipient and whether or not he/she will understand the context. Now, he/she will infer it in his/her context and further pass it on with the same intention.

This ‘ritual’ reminds me of two things.

1. These construction workers passing the bricks making a human chain and

2. The Chinese whispers.

In the first case, the workers don’t know the purpose of the bricks being passed. They come on daily wages. They’re clueless if it’s for a house, shop, palace or grave? They merely pass the bricks.

Imagine to that, they change the shape and size of the bricks as per their understanding. 

That’s what we do with information these days.

What is the root cause? The answer is simple.

Focus has been sacrificed at the altar of “multi-tasking”

While there is no sense of urgency to get anything productive done, there is an evident mad rush to skim through life.

After all, we owe the false sense of being busy to our smartphones.

This reminds me of a scene from the first installment of Kung Fu Panda where Po struggles to climb the mountain to get a glimpse of his favorite Famous Five and the eventual Dragon Warrior. He puts in a lot of effort, pulls and pushes the cart but at the end, finds himself only a few steps from ground level.

We struggle and put in a lot of effort but get nowhere. The good news is, we are not far from making mends and starting afresh either.

The biggest by-product of the above is we have useless information that fakes itself as data points during decision making thereby over-complicating simple decisions and events.

Earlier things were pretty straight forward. You know, black or white with a few sprinkled grey characters. Now there are 50 shades of Grey, metaphorically speaking.

This false sense of being busy has either derailed or killed many an old-world charm, ‘Patience’ and ‘Romance’ being the biggest victims.

In career building, it's about knowing what one needs/seeks; practicing/pursuing it with passion; allowing results to improve and eventually taste sweet success. Patience is a dying virtue in the world of fast-food, use-and-throw products and instant results.

Instant results also follow itself in the world of relationships. I’m seeking ‘x’ and if I don’t get it, I’ll go looking for it elsewhere.

Love in earlier days was associated with Romance and Romance with enigma.

Mind you, ‘Romance’ is an important ingredient in Love for it to last long.

Each individual is different and learning / discovering interesting things about each other over a period of time (patience) is what makes Romance so romantic.

In today’s Tinder-world, where people swipe left and right, you’ll know s#!t about a person through these easily fake-able profiles. It’s worth an effort even if it means that after you’ve met in person, he/she turns out to be nothing more than s#!t. It’s the experience that counts and not the result.

Pursuing a person you think you love is different from stalking. Stalking is a mental disorder whereas pursuing belongs to the romance family. It is in the interest of both for this phase to occur. This period tests for perseverance and consistence. It helps to filter out infatuation and lust.

Only true love wins. Only true passion succeeds.

RTC all this while has been TIME & FOCUS. Think Think. Wink Wink.