The older I get, the more bizarre human beings seem to me (me included!). Now that the whole world has gone global, it’s harder to put our thumb on what specific things catch our interest and why. Oh, yes, I know that we have big brother tracking us with all kinds of a.i. products that I would prefer not to think about, but I mean from just your average Jane’s point of view, seeing what the people in your culture are really interested in is now being drowned out by multiple layers of interests.

Why I bet by the time a child grows up to be 14, they know what flavor coffee they prefer and how to order it much less if they are into digital gaming what type, level and brand.

But I’d say the usual suspects for our attention such as all the communication tools we have at our finger tips (or vocal chords today) is not nearly as big a culprit as who may hang out behind the curtains orchestrating our interests for us Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all conspiracy-theory on you, but what I do want to do is to help you see why it may take more effort for you to look up from the layers of information around you to really pay attention to what captures your interest and perhaps more importantly, why?

I know there are some things that capture my interest that I would just as soon not share with you here, but for the sake of making a point I will so things like all the Law and Order shows and C.S.I. and Criminal Minds. In fact, for the latter show it is normal for me to fast forward through the scarier scenes and mute along the way so why on Earth would I waste my time on it. Curiosity? I don’t want to even delve to deep into the reasons here.

Some of the teachers who I have followed over the years have taught me that we are powerless over a helluva lot of things except ourselves…an even then it’s a crap shoot. The good news is that they more we exercise our brain, heart and spirit through meditation and intentional thought the more we can by mindful of where/when/how/why we place our attentions. It’s like our brains are a huge multi-layered email system of information that we take in every second of the day and we can choose to put spam filters inside to winnow away what we don’t need to waste our attention.

What captures your interest? It will tell you more about yourself than you may know.