Taking Back Our Power of Attention
“Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.”
Jeffrey Tucker, in a recent piece, delved into the financial meltdown that occurred this week:
At some point in the future—and maybe that future is now—fundamentals will reassert themselves with ferocity and a level of austerity that this generation has never faced will be upon us.
Are we strong enough to make it through? I’m not sure. But in the end, and it will end, we will all be stronger as a result. A new stoicism awaits us all.
From our study of Meditations, we know that Marcus Aurelius believed in a program of mind training. Often, our minds are undisciplined, and our attention wanders without focus.
To be clear, the power of attention is not a magical remedy that will exempt us from future obstacles.
In The Princess Bride, Westley, disguised as the Dread Pirate Roberts, delivers one of writer William Goldman’s classic lines: “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
The Stoic philosophers weren’t trying to sell us anything. If you believe Stoicism is a superficial idea that encourages us to suck up the coming societal pain and get on with it, you are missing their point.
The Stoics didn’t promise freedom from disturbing emotions and hardships. They promised the freedom to have emotional well-being despite our problems. The Stoics didn’t teach us to resist our feelings or pretend they don’t exist. To the Stoics, sucking it up was a waste of a learning opportunity.
In her book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, Winifred Gallagher offers this guidance: “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.”
In 2025, the world will offer plenty of learning opportunities, and we will be called on to exercise our power of attention.
In 2025, at Mindset Shifts U, we will work with books that hone our power of attention.
This fall, before we get to 2025, we will be working with F. A. Hayek’s classic, The Road to Serfdom.
I have not finalized the 2025 schedule yet, but we will likely work with David K. Reynolds, Epictetus, Seneca, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Reynolds teaches Constructive Living, a brilliant mixture of two forms of Japanese philosophy, Morita and Naikan.
Reynolds's profound insights pack a punch, leaving a lasting impact. Here is an example:
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Having been born in 1951, raised by both parents, I learned stoicism, although not by explicit name. My father was a veteran of WWII and Korea, mother a traditional housewife. We were neither poor nor well off. But we were told to be thankful for what we had. If we wanted more, we did extra to earn it. Chores were assigned; extra meant picking up odd jobs common at the time: mowing lawns, shoveling snow, even babysitting (before all males were banned from such activities). I also sold things door to door as an adolescent, whether candy, flower seeds, greeting cards, and learned to enjoy sales, which later became my career for nearly 50 years
But life had ups and downs, and my parents' message was always suck it up, learn from your mistakes, ask for help, and strive to do better. I like to joke that I seldom made the same dumb mistake twice, but I'm good at coming up with new ones.
Stoicism is quite valuable for a sales rep, since you fail getting more sales than you close, for most of us. You can't let that bother you too much. Like a relief pitcher, you must forget that the previous batter got a hit, and concentrate on the new batter completely. And avoid overconfidence, by the same token. Most jobs can be examined the same way. Happiness is not gained by getting everything you want, rather wanting what you got. Your life will have happiness and tragedy. Handle each as they happen and find the path on from there
My case in point: our daughter, only child and light of our lives, drowned in September 2023. Our extended family is coping, well or poorly, and some are showing more pain than others. A few have asked me how I remain on an even keel, despite how close we were. We'll, she was a bit Stoic as well and I must live up to her example or fail my life lessons. I don't really have the ability to pass that on to some relatives because they don't have the background and wouldn't appreciate the lecture. So I continue to live as good an example as I am able. She would demand no less of me.
“Thats the reason its called work” my drill sargents reply to my obvious failing enthusiasm. Work is not supposed to be “fun”. Rewarding, fulfilling, productive, but still work Ifind satisfaction in putting my shoulder to the wheel.
Best regards, prof B. James pair