Fine Tune Your Focus

Fine Tune Your Focus

Invariably I find that phrasing I choose shapes the answers I receive. “Did you have a good time?” results in monosyllabic, “Yeah” responses. 

Shudder.

I have since learned that specific questions result in specific answers and closed questions close down conversations. On the other hand, open ended questions spark variety and depth.

“What were your favorite parts?”

“What do you remember?”

“What are you thankful for?”

“Can you tell me something interesting?”

“Can you tell me the weirdest thing you learned?”

These are the conversations I await with bated breath. They are the start of something and the continuation of more. They connect what happened to the present moment’s reflection and inspire tomorrow’s plans. If I know that my daughter’s favorite part of a fairy day was building a fairy home, then I know that the next event I learn about with an opportunity to craft or build might spark the same joy in her. I can connect memories. I encourage you to integrate open ended questions into your discussions with littles and weave them into your conversations with adults. You might be surprised at what you learn about the people you thought you knew.

Yet when we are tired or hungry; when we are overwhelmed or unappreciative, what we remember might not be the reality we experienced. Even the adults in the group might forget the feel of the fresh wind atop the mountain and remember instead the blistered toe we earned on the way down. I’d like to humbly suggest that we fine tune our focus so that we can choose to experience happiness in this moment and not chase the ephemeral when the real offers so much more. 

What you focus on becomes your experience

Viktor Frankl, who survived four concentration camps between 1942 and  1945, argued that even amidst the worst of  attitude. Anything can be done to us but  that last freedom is ours no matter what.   We are the lens that opens and closes to let in light.  

While struggling through my second Covid vaccine this week I suffered through a 12 hour skull crushing headache and two days of fever. I can choose to focus on that pain and a phantom twinge blooms at the base of my skull even now. I can remember that the laundry was running amuck by the time I recovered and working out afterwards was awful (and it was!).

But that is not my only choice.

I can choose to remember that my husband let me nap even when I told him not to, that my children and their friends modulated their voices so not to yell, and that everyone stepped up when I was tapped out. 

I choose. 

We are intelligent and creative beings who desire meaning according to Frankl. There is meaning in a fairy day at a garden when you surrender to the delight of wand making and dressing up entirely in purple. There is meaning in the mile long walk you take with your son and the chatter that fills your house when it is full. What we create and do with our time has meaning. Our experiences and interactions have meaning. Our attitude has meaning.

The catch, my friends, is that the desire for meaning does no equal happiness. Happiness is dozens of daily choices that have to be made again tomorrow and it is hard work. It waits, on the edge of vision for us to turn and bring it into focus. If the picture today is blurry, then we adjust again tomorrow.

I want my people to be know that they choose their mood no matter their external circumstances. I want them to practice focusing on the positives so that they see the beautiful and the possible. Don’t you? When I choose my open ended questions and seek to shape the quality of answers given, I am choosing to invite discussions about what thrills, what stirs thought and interest, what prompts wonder, and what makes them appreciate that which exists in the now. Memory to memory I hope they build a life of meaning and happiness.

Let’s Ponder Some Choices:

-You can be rude to me and I can react or I can choose not to react.

-You can ignore me and I can choose to be hurt or choose to look at the 

lesson that moment taught me. 

-I can engage or disengage.

-I can avoid hurt or I can risk joy.

Your Turn. What are your Choices today?