Focus

Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. The Law of Reverse Effort states that if you try to stay on the surface of water, you sink, but when you try to swim to the bottom, your body floats to the surface.

Focus is similarly interesting: What you think about you bring about, but if you focus too much on one thing, you miss out on something else. Sometimes, we do this by choice, like when you focus on work to keep your mind off something more personal and painful. But, most of the time, we have no idea that we're focused on the wrong thing. When we imagine the life we want, for example, we tend to focus on what we think will get us there, rather than focusing on why we want it in the first place.

Like the woman who even created a Vision Board with a copy of her checkbook to manifest Two Million Dollars in her bank account, and crazily enough, she got it! Thing is, the money came from a settlement agreement after she got hit by a city bus while crossing the street. You see, money was the wrong focal point all along. Instead of focusing on the life she wanted and what she thought money would solve, she hyper-focused on the dollar amount.

That's precisely how and why we so often miss the forest for the trees. It's like going to the grocery store thinking... Don't forget the milk... Don't forget the milk... Don't forget the milk... And you come home with everything but the milk because you focused on forgetting it. We think a vacation to Hawaii will relieve our stress, but trust me, I've seen so many

tourists on the islands stressing about the most trivial things. If we can lose sight of the fact that we are in paradise while we are actually in it, then the old saying that changing your perspective can change your life, really starts to make sense. In relationships, for example, the 80/20 rule dictates that the most you can reasonably expect from your partner is to have 80 percent of your needs met.

But, if someone new comes along offering you the twenty percent you don't get at home, You don't leave the eighty for the twenty. There are many examples of how big of a role focus plays in our lives, yet we rarely pause a question or adjust our focus. Many years ago, when I decided to quit my job at the law and simplify my life, they tried everything to get me to stay from offering double my salary to lighten my workload.

But, even though I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, I knew for sure that a corporate job in a cubicle under fluorescent lights was not it, and no amount of money was going to incentivize me to stay. Having a strong resolve is how we resist the temptations to veer off our chosen path. So, as you set your intentions for the new year, pause for a moment to focus on WHY you want the things you do. What's the reason behind it? What are you really after?

When we know the answer to THOSE questions, we magically grow to crave what's actually good for us, and anything that distracts us from that, becomes unappealing. Keep in mind that if it's happiness you want, happy people focus on what they have, while unhappy people focus on what's missing. Where's your focus?

I sat with this month's discussion topic and redrafted it a hundred times to make sure the invitation for us to check our focus is not only clear, but that it motivates us to reflect on whether adjusting the way we look at things can bring us closer to embracing the present moment with gratitude, and to see problematic situations as learning opportunities. Heck, maybe even appreciate those opportunities for what they have to