CONCENTRATION IS THE KEY

So, I found this article called Concentration is the Key by Tamim Ansary and I think he has some pretty interesting ideas...

These days, people love to say they can multitask, they say they have the ability, but, is that really necessary?? Multitasking I mean..

¨ People are born with a propensity for it but the skill must then be developed, and the process begins in childhood. Until recent decades, Whitehead says, people learned to read from books that had relatively few pictures and were written in "natural language," which presented readers with lots of vocabulary they didn't necessarily know. Reading those books demanded -- but also built -- concentration. Today, books for beginning readers tend to have lots of pictures and only a few words, and those words are carefully selected to be reading-level appropriate so that children rarely encounter words they must puzzle out from context. If the material is well sequenced, children emerge into reading naturally without palpable effort, almost without noticing: That's the theory.

The theory works. Kids do learn to read from carefully calibrated materials such as these, but building up the power of concentration? That's a different issue. Many elements of modern life may actually erode concentration by involving children in short bursts of interaction that return quick rewards. Take video games, for example. What they have to give, you can get in five seconds -- bang! pow! hey, that felt good! -- and if you play for 10 seconds, you get the same thing twice (and for 30 seconds, six times). Playing a video game for hours on end (not uncommon -- been there/done that) resembles concentration but is actually, in my opinion, the exact opposite; it is to concentration as antimatter is to matter. By contrast, reading or telling stories to very young children may help build concentration by involving them in a narrative that takes shape over time and offers a payoff only if they've stayed with the story throughout.

Concentration -- why bother?

Concentration is worth building because it is a foundational skill; it supports almost everything else one might do. In that way it's like intelligence. In fact, definitions of intelligence often include concentration as a component. Anecdotes about famous achievers of history suggest that one thing they shared was a phenomenal ability to get fully immersed in … something. Michelangelo spent two years on his back, two feet from the ceiling, painting the Sistine Chapel. I myself would have spent most of that time idly wondering whether to have pizza that night or soup. ¨

He says there's health tips that can be used as concentration tips, like:

• You can't concentrate when you're drowsy, so get enough sleep.
• You can't concentrate when you're groggy, so don't sleep too much.
• You can't concentrate when you're starving, so eat right.
• You can't concentrate when you're bloated, so don't overeat.
• And get some exercise, for heaven's sake! You can't concentrate if -- I'll stop there. It's worthy advice, but generic. The same tips apply to almost anything you might want to do better.

Concentration is a skill. If it isn't used, it can atrophy; if it isn't trained, it fails to develop past a certain point. But by the same token, with the proper training and practice, it can be developed to a level of fearsome intensity. Preferably, this begins in childhood (which is where parents and other elders come in) but it's never too late. Adults with normal powers of concentration can strengthen those powers with simple exercises such as: • Count backward from 100 slowly and steadily.

• Count backward from 100 by threes. (I'm not that smart lol, it would take hours I guess haha) • Simply look at an object for a set period -- say, 15 minutes. • Building on the previous exercise, remove the object and picture it for that same period. And if the buzz of distracting thoughts grows intolerable, stop what you're doing, make a list of everything on your mind at that moment, choose one thing to focus on, and then schedule a time to deal with all the rest. When you make a list and schedule what you want to do, you become more relaxed and can focus in a better way... In short, I stand with those Zen masters who, when asked how they achieved enlightenment, answered, "When I walk, I just walk. When I eat, I just eat." And that's true, don't try to multitask to feel better, or 'cause you feel like everyone can do it and not you, is ok, multitasking is not for all, and sometimes doing just one thing at the time can be better 'cause you do it better -- YOU ARE FOCUSED ;)


I wish to be: Doing my homework instead of writing this blog... I guess I'm not much of a multitask-er...