Zen Habits has a great post about focus. I agree that what you focus on becomes your reality. Of course my problem is my focus is a little blurry.

The post accurately sums up my biggest problem right now.

If we let our attention jump from one thing to another, we will have a busy, fractured and probably unproductive day. If we focus entirely on one job, we may lose ourselves in that job, and it will not only be the most productive thing we do all day, but it’ll be very enjoyable.

I do tend to jump from thing to thing. The problem with that is that it tends to make me a generalist and I don’t believe that’s helpful for me.

One of the great benefits of meditating is it helps achieve focus. It stills the mind and allows a person to focus with great clarity. The tough part is focusing while dealing with the every day minutiae.

I guess I should meditate on that.

and doing nothing.

Is from a Zen saying. It’s typically, from what I’ve read, the state of meditation.

It’s how I try to meditate. Sometimes I can do that well and other times it doesn’t work out so well. But for the moment, it’s what I strive for. Although, strive is the wrong word altogether as I’m really trying to achieve anything. I’m trying to achieve nothing but sitting and breathing and focusing on nothing.

And believe it or not, sitting quietly doing nothing is really hard to do.

The mind flits about so quickly.

Why did I say that to my boss?
I can’t believe that jackass cut me off this morning.
Did I flush the toilet?

And that’s all in 1 second.

No wonder we go crazy today. We can’t just sit there and do nothing. We’re always trying to do something or accomplishing something.

Nuts. We’re all nuts.

So in order to push off the nuttiness I try to sit quietly doing nothing.

For me, once I get into the habit of doing that repeatedly, I do feel relaxed. And it’s not the relaxed feeling of the weekend. It is truly a relaxation of the mind. The mind doesn’t run about or make things up.

Of course with the modern life it is a tad difficult to keep that habit. And that is my problem right now. But still, when I know I need to quiet my mind I go into the bedroom and sit quietly, doing nothing.