I have been thinking about the phrase “pay attention” a lot lately.
Pay. Attention.
To pay. To give (a sum of money) in exchange for goods or work done or in discharge of a debt. To yield or provide someone with (a specified sum of money). To give or bestow.
When you are paying attention to something, in other words, a transaction is taking place. You are giving something of value in order to receive something in return. And your attention must be very valuable, because there are companies making billions of dollars off of it. Off of you.
The question we need to ask, then, quite urgently, is what we are getting out of these exchanges. Are we making sound deals with the most valuable asset in our possession? Or are we being swindled into giving it all away?
We are spending our attention on so many things. Marketers and advertisers and social media programmers and magazines and politicians and news anchors and all sorts of companies that use every tool they can think of to get us to look at what they want us to see. Because it’s only once they have us looking that they can try to sell us something. Our attention is the only gateway they have to reach us.
Do you recognize, then, how powerful you are?
Once you wrest your attention back from all of the distractions flashing around you, once you close the gate and nothing can reach you, you are suddenly in control again. When this happens, you are ready to start negotiating deals on your own terms. You are ready to spend your riches wisely and focus only on the things that are important to you. Buy exactly what you want with your time. It really is that simple. It really is that difficult.
The trick is to remember, and to keep remembering. To stop letting these very persuasive profiteers hypnotize you into forgetting. They will never stop trying. They will keep coming up with new tricks. Because they will always want whatever attention you have to give. It will never lose value. It’s the most secure source of wealth in the world.
I say all of this mostly to myself. I can’t say how many hours of my life have been lost on YouTube and Instagram and Pinterest and watching TV. It’s so very easy to let it happen, to latch onto distractions that feel relaxing, but which are actually just draining. To let the time pass me by.
So, if you’re reading this, here is a friendly alarm. Your gate is open. You’re spending your attention here, on the internet. On this blog.
Is there something else you’d like to be purchasing with your attention instead?
design + surrender 