Focus

By Rick Blechta

These days, it’s difficult to keep one’s focus. (“Gee, now there’s something no one else has ever said before,” stated Captain Obvious.)

No, I’m not going to go on about Covid-19 — even though the current news about the new variant is definitely anxiety-provoking.

I’m beginning to feel as if life is speeding up. With everything going on in the world, it’s hard to stay on top of things to which one really needs to pay attention.

Whether you believe in manmade climate change or not, it’s perfectly obvious the earth is going through rapid changes that are going to severely impact life as we know it.

Then there’s political unrest from peaceful protests to all out, devastating wars.

The icing on the cake is the pandemic that just won’t stop.

The causes and solutions to every one of these issues have been discussed to the point where we just want to switch off, jump on our beds and pull the covers over our heads until it all goes away.

At present, hope seems to be in very short supply.

The result for a lot of us seems to be brain fog. There’s just too much to think about that we become overwhelmed.

The solution is obvious: switch off. It can’t be done permanently, of course. That would be foolhardy. But with the media, social media, and even friends and relations, pounding at us every day with Bad News maybe it’s just a good idea to ignore everything for a day or two.

Take a walk. Read a book. Don’t look at email, Facebook, Twitter, all of them. Don’t even open your mail.

When I sat down to write last night, there was no story in my head. It was as if it had all been erased. What had replaced it was the myriad of things that are troubling me at the moment. Couple that with overstressed brain fog, and I knew nothing good was going to happen. Something had to be done.

So after I post this email today, I’m not going to look at the computer, listen to the news, and tell anybody who wishes to talk to me that I’m currently unavailable.

Here’s hoping my little “reset” works! I’ll let you all know next time.

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When I went to publish my post today, I noticed that John Corrigan’s post for Thursday has the same title. I didn’t steal your idea John; I swear it! I’m also not going to look at your post until Thursday. I wonder if we’re discussing the same thing?