Eyes on the Goal

Up to the Task

“When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything.”

Mark Nepo (The Book of Awakening, p.57)

          When we focus only on the problems, they begin to fill up the screen of our thoughts. There are so many problems to focus on that we forget that many good things are happening at the same time. It is our habitual tendency to focus on the problem that makes us feel most miserable. In the words of Mark Nepo, “misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything.”

          Recently, I have heard so many people speaking about their strategy to ward off negativity and focus on the positive. It’s almost a ritualistic obsession, like running six miles a day, or training for an Ironman. This phenomenon is new for us. People have always worried about this or that, but for the last four years, we’ve been obsessed with problems to the point that they seem to suck the life out of everything else. We have begun to limit our intake of news and limit our conversations to subjects unrelated to politics—anything to blot out the panic that hovers just around the edges of our thinking. Because, if we let down our guard the weight of the worry feels crushing.

          That is why we must widen our focus. Open the lens of awareness and allow the whole picture to come into view. While there are big problems in the world, there are also hopeful and even exciting signs of change. Clarissa Pinkola Estes put it this way: “Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirits dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.”

          Our task is to bring consciousness and compassion to the moment we are in. We don’t have to fix the whole world, but we do have to reach out to whomever we can and lend a hand to the part of the world we can reach. This is our task, and we are up to the job.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane