Where is Your Attention?

Every morning at the fire house, as one shift ends and another begins, you will find yourself in a whirlpool of hubbub as you swing the doors open—trekking through laughter, good-natured ribbing, smells of breakfast, and the pass-downs from off-going crews—as you look for your counterpart whom you are ready to relieve from duty.

Crews are coming on and going off their 24-hour shifts. Firefighters are relieved of duty by their on-coming counter parts. And the off-going crews pass down any relevant information about the goings-on from the shift before. In this way, fire stations remain fully staffed, rigs ready to respond to emergencies–twenty-four seven, 365 days a year.

If you are a firefighter, after morning pass-downs, you will make your way through the hallway and out onto the apparatus floor, where the engine and truck wait silently and faithfully, until the alarm tones roust them once again.

As you hang your turnout coat on the fire truck door and place your turnout pants and boots ready to be jumped into, you may notice telltale signs that confirm the off-going crew’s late night activities.

Bits of sheetrock lie scattered on the floorboard of the fire truck—remnants of last night’s work at a fire. Your mind’s eye pictures the crews using pullers and pike poles to search for spreading fire within the walls of the house. Next, your conditioned eye may spot some fine, glass dust on the floor from last night’s 2 AM extrication, as a car wrapped itself around a telephone pole.

Attention to What Matters
Your mind takes in all this information in seconds, as you begin, perhaps the most important task of your day. It is time to turn your full attention to your self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA)–the bottle pack that sits on your back and will supply you with ten to twenty minutes of air as you crawl through several hundred degrees of heat in a burning structure. It’s time to check it off, make sure it works, and know that it is ready to go.

For all the countless of tools firefighters need to be expertly familiar with, the SCBA is the most critical one. Firefighters need to be intimately familiar with it—the hoses, the regulators, the emergency by-pass valve, how it’s put together, how it works, how to put it on fast—so that they can handle it, in the pitch black, without a second thought. In fact, it should morph into a very extension of his/her own body, once it is donned.

Firefighters practice and test their knowledge of SCBA parts and pieces and troubleshooting skills. They are tested and timed in donning and doffing their air packs annually, throughout their entire careers, on this vital piece of equipment.
The SCBA is a matter of life or death to firefighters. So we put our attention on it—every day, all the time.

Attention—Agent of Creation
What is it about our attention that is so important?

Have you every noticed that the things you devote your attention to, thrive? Just as firefighters excel in their SCBA skills, so it goes with everything–from our beliefs, to our pets, to our houseplants! The more attention they receive, the more they grow and thrive.

The question that follows is: If we know that our attention is an agent of powerful creation, where then are we putting our attention in every minute of our precious days?

Who are we spending time with?
What are we reading?
What are we thinking and talking about?
What kinds of things are we focusing on in our relationships, careers, fears, our health, our dramas?
Are we focusing on the solution or the problem?
Is our attention on the past, present or future?
Are we putting our attention on those things that really matter to us?

There is so much we can choose to put our attention on, throughout our day. There is no right or wrong answer in where you choose to put your attention. But knowing what is important to you, so that you can purposefully focus your attention, will shape your life into the one you desire.

Be Deliberate in Your Attention
If we are vigilant, we can be purposeful in every moment, in how we focus our thoughts and how we take action. And we can be sure, that whatever we put our attention on will grow and thrive.

So let us resolve then to be conscious and deliberate about where we are putting our attention. Let’s not let our attention be happenstance or hi-jacked from the things that really matter to us.

Attention is the watering of the garden! Whatever we tend to–good, bad or otherwise—grows, as we water  it with the power of our attention.

It is good to take stock, now and then, of just exactly where we are putting our attention.

Is your garden growing the way you want?