CosmicSandBox’s Weblog

A minister friend of mine used to say, “I pay for my life with my attention.”  I had never considered paying for my life. Nor had I considered how attention could be the currency to pay for it. Isn’t attention just being awake? Apparently not.

            Most of us ramble through our lives assuming we are entitled to be here fully equipped with a functioning earth suit that runs on free air. We don’t give our existence a second thought, except to complain about it when it feels uncomfortable or breaks. We assume we are paying attention just because we’re awake and moving through the world. But we are not awake. We are sleepwalking.

            We not only don’t consider that we need to pay for our life, we don’t think about being grateful for the gift that it is. If we were to wake up and realize what an amazing awe inspiring thing our lives are and this planet is, we could experience Heaven on Earth. We do have moments here and there when we are mindful of how wonderful life is. But these moments are so few. We slide into unconsciousness so easily.

            Unlike mankind, all of nature is 100% attentive and intentional. Only human beings squander the short time they have here. When we live on auto-pilot most of the time, we are prone to make a mess of our lives and our planet. We act like toddlers who break their toys, mess their room and expect the parents to fix everything.

            However, in this analogy, who is the responsible parent keeping it all together? There is no parent, and that is the problem. There are only the natural consequences working through the law of cause and effect. Consequently the toys become worthless and the play room is uninhabitable. This is the situation in the world today.

             Whatever we pay attention to expands. Think about that whenever you are tempted to focus on your problems. We can heal ourselves by observing and changing our “stinkin’ thinkin’. Most of our thoughts are in that category – worthless or destructive. On the other hand, paying attention to the positive aspects of life creates more life.

            What are you paying attention to? What thoughts are running through your mind? It is a fact that we love what we pay attention to. All of us would deny that we love the stress and strife in our life, but that is what we are paying attention to 24/7. What we don’t realize is that every moment counts. There are no “free” moments when our thoughts aren’t impacting our lives. Whatever we are thinking or feeling is recorded and stored into our cell tissue to manifest in our future moments.        

            For example, if we are focusing on our lack of money, we will continue to experience a lack of money. If we are focusing on our bodies being weak, overweight or sick, we just keep getting more of that. We always get more of what we pay attention to and focus on.

            Paying attention isn’t complicated. It’s just a matter of observing our thoughts consistently. This includes observing what may be thoughtlessly flying out of our mouths. We don’t realize how often we are testifying to pain and suffering without even realizing it.

            Think of being attentive as being a good soldier. Soldiers cannot afford to go unconscious and daydream. There is no “time out” in a battle. Their very life depends on their level and quality of attention. We need to pay attention at that level, because we also die in little bits and pieces from lack of attention.

            When the effects of unconscious thinking occur so slowly, we are deceived into believing there is no connection between unpleasant events and our thoughts. By the time the situation occurs we’ve forgotten the thoughts that preceded it. We think we are helpless victims of random circumstances. This is the toddler thinking level mentioned above. It is irresponsible and deadly.

            We must wake up, grow up and pay attention. This means accepting 100% responsibility for what is showing up in our lives. That is the only way we can create a different reality for ourselves.