I have some ideal outcomes for June:
- spend less money: ~30% less
- get back to running training after being sick
- understand my own consciousness and how to use it
Three ways to try and achieve this:
- reduce distractions: no Twitter on my phone, limit it on computer
- focus attention: read when I feel the urge to reach for entertainment, eat well, and limit alcohol
- self-appropriation: doing the first module of my friend Michael’s upcoming fall course he’s teaching at Boston College on God, life, and society, and using consciousness as the primary layer
One of the primary things across anybody I’ve read about or come to respect who come to do something in the world, and in their own life, is that they had a particular intensity and focus. That’s what June is for.
“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”
– William James
So, let me do my best to come to understand what it is I’m agreeing to attend to. I’m afraid that a lot of what I’m paying attention to is what I have, in fact, not agreed to but have let, and continue to let, my unconscious pay attention to and dominate my time.
If James wrote that now, I imagine he’d have solid appreciate for the near impossibility of agreeing to your own attention rather than having it hijacked constantly by The Algorithm.