Why Focus Is Really About Memories
Focus gives you the deepest, most intimate experiences with the people and things you love, and without it you can be physically present for your whole life and mentally absent from all of it.
Dandapani explains that the point of practicing focus is not focus itself but what it makes possible: being fully present, and therefore actually experiencing your life and forming memories of it. He asks you to test your priorities by asking what you would do with three hours to live, and to build the practice into the ordinary things you already do every day.
What this talk covers
- Focus is worth practicing for what it gives you, in the same way that meditation is worth practicing for what the practice gives you.
- If you are standing there fishing and you are mentally absent, you never experience it, and it never becomes a memory.
- Life is finite, so ask yourself what you would do with three hours to live, write down what rises to the surface, and focus on those things.
- Start where the day already is, with brushing your teeth, eating dinner, and time with your daughter, and build the practice there.
- Give yourself the attention you give everything else, because if you are always engaging with something outside you, your mind treats you as busy and tells you nothing about you.
How do you figure out your priorities in life? You squeeze time.Dandapani
Questions
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Because focus is what lets you actually experience the people and things in front of you. Dandapani says you can be physically with someone your whole life and mentally absent, and then find you did not experience any of it.
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He asks people what they would do if they had three hours to live. The point is not to live as if you are dying, but to bring what is important to the surface of your mind, write it down, and then focus on those things.
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Because when you stop engaging with everything else, you start to hear and see things about yourself you would rather not. Dandapani says that work has to be done with self-empathy and compassion, or you will look at yourself and simply hate what you see.
Transcript
882 words · 4:26
I think one message I would love for your audience to take away from this podcast, Matt, is that it's not about focus. It's about what focus gives you. Because some people go like, they don't understand it. Why do you want to focus? Again, it's like meditation, right? It's not about meditation. It's like, what does meditation give you?
That practice gives you something that is so special. Focus gives you you the deepest, most intimate experiences with the people and things that you love, whether it's fishing or riding a dead bike. If you could be fully present with that, you fully experience it. If you're standing there fishing and you're mentally absent,
you never experience it. Yeah, I think the most important thing in our lives is the memories. And what I hear you saying is if you're not focused on it, you can't actually make a memory. We've probably experienced amazing things in our life where, like you said, driving through
Paris looking at her phone, beauty everywhere. But it's not a memory because we're not focused on the potential of it becoming one. And then you think about the people you love.
You can go through your whole life being physically with them, but mentally absent. And then you just go, okay, I didn't experience any of it. And I, I realize my life is finite.
It's not short, but it's finite. There's a clear definitive end. I don't know when that end is, but I know it will end. And I would always ask people, you know, how do you get orange juice?
You squeeze the orange. How do you figure out your priorities in life? You squeeze time. If I told you you had three hours to live, Matt, would you do this podcast?
No, sir. But I do really like talking to you, but I wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be here, right? So same with me.
If you tell most people if you had three hours to live, what would you do? All their priorities would rise to the surface of their mind. Write them down and then the goal is not to live, pretend like you're going to die in three hours.
The goal is to bring to the surface what's important and then focus on those things. Yeah, and like you said so well, people will listen to that and go like, oh, that sounds cute but I've got a job, I've got all this stuff, like it's chaos. What you said was so brilliant.
Take the absolute activities that happen every day. You brush your teeth, you spend time with your daughter, you eat dinner. Start there. Focus there.
Build up the practice, build up the habits. I mean, one of the things I've done is I used to not be very comfortable sitting with just me like in silence And so I recognize every day I have to drive to work and I have to drive home So can I sit in a hundred percent silence for the 18 minutes? It takes to get to the office
No podcast no music nothing just the road. Yeah, just the noise Just the nail in my tire making the clunking like whatever it is, right? And I just be present and what I found is that's actually some of the most beneficial time for me And then on the way home, I challenge myself most days, can I do it today?
Now some days I'm trying to finish up the day and handle that last call or whatever. But if I can do that, just be present with me for those 18 minutes in the morning and then those 18 minutes at night, I have found in me that I can see me, accept me, forgive me, understand me, and then I can be a totally better or more improved version with my family, with my kids, because I see me.
Yes, and why is it that we are willing to give everything and everyone else so much time and attention but not ourselves? You know, how many podcasts do people listen to? Music, all the time engaging, but you ask people to spend 20 minutes in the car by themselves, so if they're waiting for the subway, they have to pull their phone out of the pocket, scroll until the train comes.
Why don't you just stand there and listen to yourself? Your mind can't tell you about you you, if you're constantly engaging in something else, your mind's just kind of like, oh, he's busy. And I think the other part of it, you know, Matt, is that it's difficult to listen to yourself because now you're starting to hear and see things that you don't want to.
And that's why I think that work needs to be done with a broader picture of understanding that you are evolving and you have made mistakes and you've also done great things and to You have a tremendous amount of self-empathy and compassion. Because if you don't, you will look at yourself and you will just hate you.
And you know, beat yourself down, I'm a terrible person, I'm a mean person, I'm this, I'm that, and that doesn't help anybody.