Attention is the intention to avoid unnecessary value judgments about your own experience–both internal and external. – Timothy Miller
I went to two holiday parties this week and lots of people spoke to me about what an awful year it must have been for us, with my dad’s death, my kids’ back surgeries, and my wife’s brain tumor. I tend to go along with this with a “Yeah, it’s been a hard year, must’ve been Y2K, hah hah, I’m looking forward to 2001” etc. and thank them for their concern.
But I come away from these exchanges feeling a little fakey. I’m not glad these things have happened, of course, but I’m realizing that this principle of Attention has made a difference for me this year. I’ve tried to avoid labeling these medical events as bad and tried to just think of them as life. I jokingly call them AFOGs but that’s sort of cynical and I don’t really feel cynical. I don’t know how I would handle really traumatic events, like if my wife or one of my kids died, or if something happened to me like a paralyzing accident or debilitating disease. But knowing that others have faced these things and have grown stronger gives me hope that I could, too. So I remind myself that ‘things happen’. Something could go wrong. I don’t have any guarantees that any of the good things in my life that I’m currently grateful for will continue. So I’ll try to just want what I have and not expect that they’ll continue.