Friday, May 15, 2009

Grrr it's the weekend....I'll never get my job done!

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.”



Focus…how often did your parents attempt to slam that five letter word deep into the presentation of your childhood? I was constantly in trouble for darting around then quickly reprimanded with the focus speech. It wasn’t something new to the journey, growing up in a bowling family, you learn the proper methods of strikes and spares are fed not by puddles but ponds of focus.



Without focus you can’t be effective.



In Tae Kwon Do we’re taught early how to put balance in a single leg holding up the weight of your world. While lifting your right or left knee, keep close to you the other parts because holding your arms out gives you wings, too far out and those around you have a place to lean.



Pulling focus from within, be it meditation, mindful thinking and breathing or a stupid kids game of who can stand on one leg the longest, without balance the final page of destination is written too soon.



Challenge yourself to stand on one foot for a minute. Instantly we look forward at a single dot or mark on the wall…we can do this! No sweat! That lasts about twenty five seconds. Your leg begins to tire; the past is your daily irritation of a job as it feeds the wandering edges of your brain and without warning the body jerks. Whoa! Catch it! Refocus! Now you have something new to add to the wibble wobbley umpa umpa. The future is now filled with how you’ll react if the foot is set down before its time.



And all you ever needed was your nose.



Want to win at the game of balance, take the opposite hand of the leg you are lifting and place your index finger on your nose. Look at you all wrapped up like a cocoon.



Sadly there aren’t any shortcuts to a better focused life. It requires four measures inside a song featuring nothing but 16 and 32nd notes with every intention of learning how to invent a 100th. We move at a high rate of speed fully expecting to one day slow it down. Yeah right. Not without putting focus on your goals. Forget self discipline and on the side rewards…putting focus on your goal creates new habits. Without focus, there are no goals…which is nothing more than a wanna-be. Ouch!



On every path he travels Buddhist Monk Thick Nhat Hahn visualizes the present. Through mindful listening he’s able to put his mind, body and soul into the present and remain there. If there are pains from your past that call you back, breathe deeply in the way of recognizing its presence then slowly let it out while whispering, “Good morning pain…” then smile. If your boss is a jerk breathe in to greet him or her and as you slowly let it out smile.



Living in the present is very real. You aren’t going to be dubbed a modern day hippie or Granola forcing you to return to the Grunge era of music where it nothing but Pearl Jam and Nirvana. People aren’t going to call you a religious freak, too good for the rest of the world or disconnected. Putting focus on the now allows you to explore newer places, ideas and temptations because there’s less stress.



The doctor the other day looks at me and says, “You talk a lot about stress…do you need a pill. I can get you a pill.” Is there anyone in the medical field not addicted to getting the rest of us addicted? Unless this doctor can figure out a newer way to take eighty seconds of words and creatively put them inside a thirty second commercial, he was quickly becoming a waste of my present.



A modern painter if being true to his passion will paint the tale of a modern America…one person, twelve different jobs. The ego loves stuff like this. You must be tremendously important. You have job security! Tell that to the enormous amount of GM employees who not only built the car but tried to sell it. We’ve lost our focus at hand while tossing out any idea that time is of importance. Eight hour days have evolved into two and three different jobs inside a twenty hour period, so when we finally do get to go home…it’s not really home; it’s a five hour lunch break. When you lose track of time you’ve injured the single most important part of happiness.



Dude! Stop it! You’re depressing me! Then think positive…



When confronted with heart wrenching challenges such as losing weight, setting down cigarettes and far less booze, what feeds your desire to fall off the wagon has everything to do with focus. Football pro Roman Gabriel once said to me, “Even if you’re frowning, to a bat you’re still smiling.” Locate the positive. Become so positive that people can’t stand being close to you. I love it when that happens!



The lessons not taught in high school are the current events that fester. The extremely tiny almost can’t see them secret thoughts and fears that sit inside, no need to be set free not until they’re ready to boil over the edge onto the floor then out the front door….totally taking our minds off how it will affect other people. A woman wonders why her eighteen year old graduate constantly smarts off. She feels her child can’t be fixed then turns around and starts screaming at the bag boy at the grocery store for not putting all the frozen products in a bag. One morning a man sits next to a minister on an airplane, he talks about his son’s future and how he fears he’s going to get hooked up with drugs and alcohol then orders a drink before the plane takes off.



Without focus…you can’t be effective. Begin your everyday with a new way to welcome its arrival…it starts with looking at the woodpecker pounding on your house and simply smiling. He’ll get the message.



Steal my art…



arroecollins@clearchannel.com

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