The Perks Of Paying Attention

~ Gottfried

Some people have the attention span of a goldfish. In case you’re wondering how long that is, it’s a whopping three seconds. In the era when the internet and hi-tech devices take up most of our time, it is getting more important than ever to pay attention to the people and things around you.  Pay attention to what I’m telling you! You’re the type to get to the end of this post and not know what to comment on. Fish head!

It improves your accuracy. It’s true, the majority of my gender have difficulty concentrating whilst peeing. It’s worse because all you have to do is point ‘little john’ laterally in the direction of the white throne and bingo! Imagine we swapped organs with the other gender, there’d be pee, not just all over the toilet seat, but the entire floor as well. Gents, you sincerely don’t do yourself any favor by holding it in until the last minute!

Attention improves memory. Honey, the reason you’re suffering acute amnesia with a tinge of dementia at 22 is simply that you never really pay attention to anything. With one eye on a laptop screen, another on your mobile device, and both ears plugged, you’re really studying hard. It’s like in Math class, once you look out the window and look back in, the words coming out of the teacher’s mouth immediately switch to mandarin.

You become more patient. Patience is the quality that can make your life much more beautiful in the long run. Watching a movie with your partner and she keeps pausing to ask you questions about a movie you’re both watching. “Who’s that guy, and why is he trying to kill her?” Sweetie, the movie is literally about a serial killer! Indeed, patience will teach you to discover and enjoy the little secrets in your life. Like not killing your partner over flimsy things.

You start noticing opportunities. If you are careful enough to pay attention to all details during conversations with other people, you may begin noticing valuable opportunities before others. As you’re sat there during the family meeting, you can tell which of your uncles is more likely to sponsor your education, and who should get invited to the graduation. Maintaining a full focus, you read between the lines and realize that a friend in need is a bloody nuisance.

You become more thorough about how you do things. Nobody likes sloppy and negligent people. You ever walk into someone’s house and start doing a countdown for when it’s the appropriate time to leave? “Oh look, a rodent! Lovely”. These traits are not good for your job, and they can also destroy your relationships with other people. However, if you pay attention to details, you can finesse your way to yet another monthly salary doing the bare minimum.

Drastically improve your interpersonal relations. A lot of things in your life depend on the nature of your relations with other people. For instance, if you don’t build solid relationships with your boss or colleagues, you’ll hardly ever do a good job or get a promotion. It also helps if you laugh at all your boss’s dry jokes. Paying attention to what people are telling you is the best way to improve interpersonal relations, so try to embrace this kind of behavior.

Learning to pay more attention can dramatically improve your life. Only the strongest individuals are patient enough to take a break, slow down, and pay attention to the world around them. You can go from painfully single, to multiple partners if you pay attention. With this great power, people will come to you to remind them of their purpose in this world. Always do your best to mislead them so that they pay the price for not paying attention themselves.

In the game of love, paying attention is crucial. For your first love, you stopping paying attention for five minutes and next thing you know, she’s sending you a wedding invite. So you learn from the mistake and promise to do better the next time. Problem is, you can somehow tell that your team’s best player is unhappy, but your new girl is unhappy right under your nose. Tragic. As for me, at this moment, I’m so broke…

I can’t even pay attention

© Gottfried. All rights reserved

646 thoughts on “The Perks Of Paying Attention”

  1. Wow, great piece. Contains lots of wisdom. Anyway, why is the brides’ veil the same color as the suit of the groom 🤔 Thought it’s always white 😀

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  5. a) accepted opinion now in the heath department is that dehydration is causing loss of memory, so drink lots more water. That doesn’t mean walking around with an extra bottle clutched in your hand. Drink an extra glass after you clean your teeth. Enough.

    b) bride should have walked away after the second hesitation.

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      1. Thank you!, and at one and the same time who dares argue? Well, most likely the person who argues. 🙂 Oh wait… that’s called conversation.

        Do I need to buy more tickets to ride again, or just get back in line? This is a seriously excellent post, the kind of post that informs and tunes one’s presence and radar.

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          1. 🙂 Conversations that expose insecurities and triggers deserve a Thank You note rather than avoidance. Becoming uncomfortable sometimes simply indicates re-configuring connective tissue and/or config in need of mods = potential growing pains. And, that’s great stuff! I appreciate your sensibilities, Gottfried. You express that kind of wisdom that takes the step beyond mastery and expertise where one is able to then Able to effectively PLAY with the process and knowledge from experience.

            As Bruce Lee expressed, “Train until the mind forgets and the body remembers.” 🙂

            Liked by 5 people

          2. Wish more people would approach things like this. Problem solving will be perceived as fun and not a witch hunt. Like relax, it’s for the much greater good.

            Bruce Lee also adds that, “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do” 👌

            Liked by 3 people

          3. Yes, questions are interrogative rather than punitive. There’s only one Principal, Sovereign, in my Perwsonal Principals’ Office, me… and I don;t keep office hours. Instead, I do. 🙂

            Liked by 3 people

          7. Plus, it’s interesting to me that many people when asked a question get all triggered like they are in trouble or about to be. Most likely the control gig from the Mentor/Tormentor of parents/etc, though my parents, regardless of how vigilant didn’t just make it clear that ‘No’ is a complete requiring no explanation. They went further. “When I ask you a question, it’s not to question you yourself. I’m interested, so I ask. Otherwise, I would not.”

            My takeaway from that years later just people-watching in meetings, especially the ones I run… “every question is urgent to the asker, though that urgency has ZERO bearing on someone whose boundaries are solid. Then, it’s simply a question, and questions imply interest, no matter how charged they are.

            I can take the question under advisement, think about it, ignore it, or ask a question about the question. Someone’s innate urgency in their question to me has to make it through my discernment before I even have a inkling to entertain it as a priority.

            Even something as simple as, “Can you do that?, as they point to something. Say, it’s the trash. “Please clarify the scope of ‘that’.” Nope, doesn’t make me an asshole. I don’t want to agree to what I assume is taking out the trash, and then they meant to paint that the Kitchen cabinets on the side of the room where they were pointing, so to speak.

            If or once I agree, then I’m on the hook, and it’s now my responsibility. Then, if I didn’t think it through, and really don’t want to do that in the first place, I might start to grumble, though anything I feel then is now on me. If I would have thought an felt through to ‘no, I don;t want to do that in the first place,” problem solved before it ever became one.

            And, oh BOY that grumbling will most likely translate its presence into the feeling I get the next time they ask me a question — created my own trigger there by blithely and blindly allowing whatever it was. All could have been, “Sure, I’ll take the trash out,” as then I clarified the scope in my response. “No, I meant after you take the trash out would you paint the cabinets.”… “Oh, certainly not. Would you like to take out the trash?” 🙂

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          8. Haha, you really went ham on this subject. Brilliant points made. Only the person being asked treats the question with urgency, everyone else is pretty relaxed.

            Liked by 5 people

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