Because what you give your attention to is the person you become. Put another way: the mind is the portal to the soul, and what you fill your mind with will shape the trajectory of your character. In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you gave your attention to. That bodes well for those apprentices of Jesus who give the bulk of their attention to him and to all that is good, beautiful, and true in his world. But not for those who give their attention to the 24-7 news cycle of outrage and anxiety and emotion-charged drama or the nonstop feed of celebrity gossip, titillation, and cultural drivel. (As if we “give” it in the first place; much of it is stolen by a clever algorithm out to monetize our precious attention.) But again: we become what we give our attention to, for better or worse.
John Mark Comer
This morning I woke up wondering when I had been eliminated from the British Bake Off and why I was chilling instead of getting my ingredients ready
You can guess I fell asleep watching.
I called these gossamer dreams. The ones you’re trying to hold onto as a new day begins to come into focus.
I grew up when the news was full of race riots and wars. Many of the violent scenes from TV would creep into my dreams robbing me of a good night’s rest. Rest, I found was much more important to the next day’s functioning than any information I could garner from being an eyewitness to chaos.
A few decades ago, I stopped intentionally watching the news especially during breakfast or running around getting ready for work. But more significantly, I stopped using the news is part of my bedtime routine before settling in for the night you. Long before the proliferation of talking heads fake news etc. I found that the news was not an effective sleep agent. For my morning scramble, it added little useful or actionable knowledge to my database and was often upsetting.
The point is this:
Just as you try to care about what you put into your body, you should use the same care in what feed your body, mind, and spirit. Our subconscious is always working. It is always trying to piece things together and turn chaos, and everything else into something logical and actionable.
I don’t know about you, but I am okay with waking up wondering how I lost my slot in some random baking contest. This sounds preferable to waking, carrying assault rifle, running for my life, haunted by some bit of hateful rhetoric from vindictive and overpaid news anchor, or chased by zombies I can’t shake trying to reach my house.
Yes, knowing what’s going on in the world is important to a degree. Even without the talking heads you’ll find out from friends and acquaintance, social media or by some other means. Important news will find you. And you can follow up through channels that you trust. And, of course, we are not just talking about news, but about everything you pour into your mind.
Your spirit and peace of mind are important.
Do not squander your peace of mind on things, or people for that matter, that will never nourish you.
Chat soon.
