Shallow time/attention is your obstacle for becoming successful
We all strive to be successful, to get the most out of our lives, to be influential (have a positive impact) in our environment, and to get rich. These goals are achievable; these days there are lots of opportunities for smart and hardworking people to get what they want. Nevertheless, there are obstacles too. These obstacles prevent us from becoming who we want to be and achieving what we aim for.
In this article, I want to pinpoint the number one obstacle that in my view is holding people and society back: shallow time/attention. Shallow time is the time that you spend while having a shallow attention, and shallow attention is when you are not deep, or you cannot be deep. Why does deep attention matter? With deep attention you can learn whatever you want whereas with shallow attention you can only watch TV, scroll on twitter/instagram/youtube and so on. If you could trade all your shallow attention time with deep attention time, you would have been able to learn programming in no more than six months and get a well-paying job at Google, FaceBook, or whichever you like. Moreover, these days the economy requires people who possess deep attention and rewards them a great amount of money. Just consider how much money does a labor at Walmart earn/make and compare it with the salary of an entry level job at a tech company.
If deep attention is so important and it is also rewarding, why do most people fail to be deep? Poor diet, no exercise, unawareness, and oversocialization. Personally, I was used to not caring so much about my diet and the impact it did have on my mood. I used to be tired, unmotivated, and exhausted; therefore, I had been spending my time in a shallow state of attention, which is toxic for productivity and your future. I am not going to give you diet suggestions here and there are great resources on the internet, so let’s move on to the next. I do not like exercise much and I do not like to be muscular. Nevertheless, I have seen many many legitimate articles that indicate the impact of exercise on focus and attention. You just need to run ten minutes and drop a drop of sweat to get the benefit. I read somewhere that sweating is important, so run until you sweat. This way you boost your attention and focus, thereby you can make more deep time in your day that is essential for your productivity and a bright future.
The third reason that people are not enjoying deep times/attention with which they can transform their future is just unawareness. They don’t know. The fourth reason is spending too much time on social media or cheap conversations; I am not guilty of doing this but many people are. Actually, there might be a correlation; let me explain this: perhaps because you don’t exercise or have a good diet, you are bored and as a result you cannot do intellectually intensive/deep tasks and alternatively you turn towards tasks that require shallow attention like scrolling on facebook to kill time.
