Keep Your Eye on the Ball. Don’t Get Distracted.
And success is yours
It is all too easy to lose our focus on what matters and become distracted.
Students enroll in college to gain an education but spend their free time partying.
Adults go to the workplace to earn a living but get distracted with petty politics and other irrelevant activities that jeopardize their job.
Writers open their word processor to write but get lost in the social media rabbit hole.
Guess what — there are many companies who want us to get distracted — they profit when we take our eyes off the ball.
Since we are in a hyper-connected world today with distractions present everywhere, we have to redouble our efforts to stay focused on our goals.
Arjuna’s Single-Pointed Focus
In the Mahabharata, teacher Dronacharya gave an archery exam to the Pandavas and Kauravas.
The student had to successfully shoot an arrow into the eye of a fish. The setting was a garden next to a pond. Dronacharya asked the first student what he saw. The student responded that he saw the garden with the pond. Unhappy with the answer, Dronacharya asked him to step aside.
The next student answered that he saw the garden. He too was relegated to the side.
Students gave various answers — they saw other students, the sky, the teacher Dronacharya, the fish … Dronacharya was not happy with any of the answers.
Enter Arjuna.
Arjuna told Dronacharya that he saw one thing and one thing alone: the eye of the fish. Pleased with the answer, Dronacharya asked Arjuna to go ahead and shoot the fish — Arjuna succeeded thanks to his single-pointed focus.
We can take a leaf from Arjuna’s playbook and give our complete focus to the tasks we perform.
Do Your Duty
Duty is the sublimest word in the language — you can never do more than your duty; you shall never wish to do less — Robert Lee
When we think about it, life is pretty simple — we have to do our duties to the best of our abilities — that’s about it — little else matters.
Invariably we do everything else but our duty.
Krishna stresses the importance of duty in the Bhagavad Gita.
“Do your duty without hankering for its results.” — Verse 2.47
“Performing your duties in an average fashion is better than performing another person’s duties well.” — Verse 3.35
“Consider happiness-sorrow, profit-loss, victory-defeat equally and do your duty for its own sake.” — Verse 2.38
When we are focused on performing our duty, we will have the motivation to shut down the noise. The mother easily says no to meaningless requests to care for her child — it is a no-brainer for her.
We can be inspired by the mother — and say no to everything which precludes us from doing our duties.
Distractions are there Everywhere
The fortune cookie is right — we live in interesting times.
We have access to technological marvels that our ancestors would have called magic. We also have more distractions than ever.
Which makes it harder than ever to fend these distractions — but if we are clear in our pursuit, we can bring our focus back to our goal.
The big tech companies are vying for our attention.
Our job is to serve ourselves, not the big tech companies who dangle us with attractive dopamine rushes.
Meditation Helps Focus
I have had trouble focusing all through my life.
I never realized it. I’m glad I didn’t realize it — I’d likely have been diagnosed with ADHD and would have been given pills. Dandapani, in his book The Power of Unwavering Focus, says that labeling a kid as having ADHD without teaching them to concentrate is no different from diagnosing them with PDD — piano playing disorder — for their inability to play piano without teaching them to play piano.
In August 2020, the meditation app Black Lotus unveiled a new avatar.
I started meditating regularly. I picked the “Focus” goal — and started meditating on sounds and forms — and my focus improved over the last two years.
I believe I can sharpen my focus even further and I look forward to restarting my focus meditation practice.
Deliberate Practice Makes Perfect
The proverb goes “Practice makes perfect.”
New age research has modified the adage — the new mantra is:
Deliberate practice makes perfect.
Practice has to be directed — you want to take a specific skill and practice it repeatedly until it becomes second nature.
Focus too can be practiced.
Even if you can’t focus for the love of your life, keep at it — and after some time, you’ll see miracles unfold — you can focus pretty well!
Keep Your Eye on the Ball
It is all too easy to take our eyes off the ball.
We will have good company. But the penalties don’t go away just because there are other people who stray away from their goals.
The select few who persist with determination rise high.
Let us aspire to be a member of this elite list.
Let us keep our eye on the ball.
So that we can tell ourselves we did the best we could.
