Does Your Mind Wander?

Achieving HappinessOk, ok, for somebody who claims we shouldn’t spend our time chasing happiness, I spend quite a bit of time learning about happiness.  As a Certified Senior Advisor, I have a mission:  help people with their Medicare Coverage and give them information that can improve the quality of their lives.

This article, A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy One, struck home! This gist of it … when we allow our mind to wander aimlessly, we are less happy.  When we are engaged with what we are doing and absorbed, we tend to be more content.

We all have wandering minds.  We are all constantly distracted.  More information hits us on a daily basis than our grandparents had to absorb in a month. This data deluge that surrounds us in our phone, our tablets our TVs, well it burns off our focus, and our ability to engage in a single meaningful activity.

I like this article because the researchers used tools to ping their subjects as they were involved in their daily activities.  One discovery?  It didn’t matter if you were a hard charging partier out on the town or an introvert at home in quiet reverie.

The important thing:  it doesn’t matter what you are doing as much as it matters that you are mentally engaged with whatever you are doing.

Concepts like this seem so simple.  Simple but not easy!

Here’s your mission for today:  whatever activity you do next, focus your attention on that activity. Mow with zest, make eye contact with your breakfast partner and listen, pay attention to the road as you drive.  Be present.

Turns out contemplative Christianity and Buddhists (and probably a bunch of other great religions) say the same thing: a focused mind is a content mind.

Now go and sin no more 😊.


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