So much of the talk now is about how ‘bad’ distraction is for us. How we need to focus more, be more present, stop and smell the roses because hey, we only go around once right? Well yea that last part is true but distraction is not all that bad. In fact, it’s better than that, it’s great.
From what I can tell ‘distraction’ offers 3 huge benefits:
Firstly, it allows you to operate in the world without a care or concern for others. I know this may seem like a negative, but really it’s just a slippery slope the moment you allow yourself to care for someone outside of you. I mean where else do you stop? Your neighbor, the barista, the homeless guy in front of your building. If you don’t put a brake on, disaster looms.
So how is care of others related to distraction? Well, when you are continually distracted by all your goings-on, there is no slack in the system to allow lingering thoughts of how you affect others and how they affect you in the world. You can just continually jump from one thing to the next remaining on a very surface level. Things are more linear therefore not permitting depth. This allows for a ease of sorts, a ‘skipping stone’ through life.
Secondly, distraction allows you to operate without a concern for yourself. All this talk of knowing yourself and being authentic, jesus who the fuck has the time for that? I need to pay the bills man, and go out and crush the world.
So by keeping vigilant focus on the external you don’t have to sit with any self-reflection, and hey, who want’s that busllshit and discomfort anyway? Fortunately, we create systems which run at a very high tension and therefore there is typically an external distraction readily available whenever we need to jump ship, lest we be alone with our own self-reflective thoughts too long.
Thirdly, distraction allows you to operate ‘well’ in the world. If everyone else is going after the golden eggs then that seems an appropriate goal right? And you want more, bigger, brighter eggs, so the ability to engage in this world is paramount. An added bonus to this third aspect that fits nicely with the second is you don’t even have to determine what the egg should be or how to get it. This is awesome! Just flip on the news or social media (really any will suffice) and passively absorb, particularly the commercials which are well-crafted by professionals to precisely and simply detail what it is you seek and what to do to get it.
And the ease of interplay between all three aspects is the icing on the cake (and who doesn’t love to indulge in cake and icing?!).
All three compliment each other well and when practicing one aspect the transcendence to bolster the other two happens without any effort. Fan-fucking-tastic!
Distraction need not be so mundane as how we typically think if it (social media video games, etc.). It can be in the full guise of productivity. When you have 20 deals working and if one of those deals is falling apart, no need to contemplate what’s going wrong, just move the fuck on to the next!
So I ask, what is better than distraction for getting ahead in this world? Given the world we operate in where we need to get that next car, build that next skyscraper and continually progress distraction is a great means to an end. I may venture to opine is is unparalleled in helping us achieve.
Evolutionarily speaking there has to be a reasons why we are so prone to distraction and why there exists so much of it in the world. It’s basically a perfect match.
So screw dealing with the piddly little details of ‘ordinary’ life, and here’s a way not to. Now, go forth, be distracted , embrace it – the only problem is, oh wait, shiny thing over there.