More and more, I think we all tend to get overwhelmed sometimes. There is just so much input these days—everywhere. TV with its 500 channels, YouTube and all the streaming things, all these invasive ads that are engineered to distract us in the perfect ways, social media yelling at us everywhere, smartphone screens, smart watches. Even if you can tear yourself away from all the screens and technology, there are worries in daily life: politics, inflation, war, appointments we have to make for ourselves and our kids, teachers we need to call and talk to, bills that need to be paid, emails and memos that need an ASAP response, coworkers with questions about projects we ourselves barely understand because the boss barely understood it before passing it off on us. And so on and so on.

Is it any wonder that most of us feel like we can't focus, like we are always distracted, like we must have undiagnosed ADHD because no matter what we do, there is always something grabbing at our attention, making focusing practically impossible?

Please note, I am not saying ADHD isn't real. I know it's real and I suspect that technologists like most of the people using Hive and reading this post are more prone to it than others. No, I'm not trying to minimize that condition. I'm just saying there is so much distraction in modern life that it mimics the effects to a large part—or possibly amplifies them and makes them worse.

As crazy, overwhelming, and attention demanding as the modern world currently is, I think it's only going to get worse. Smartphones and watches will give way to smart glasses, smart contacts, eventually smart implants that put the internet in our heads, making it a persistent voice that will be as hard to silence as our regular old monkey mind. There have been sci-fi stories that have suggested that when this happens, our own identity may become something we question, as we confuse ourselves for the other internet voices.

Even without that extreme, in the near future technology and screens will increase, we will get more and more pervasive, more invasive, more insidious ads even better engineered to steal attention even when we try to ignore them, while the news might not get worse, it will seem worse because we will be exposed to more of it more often. Everything will just become more.

Whew.... so how to deal with all of this.

I don't know. Scratch that—I do have an idea. Meditation may be one of the best ways to deal with it. Meditation won't solve it, but will provide some relief. Meditation, just like enlightenment, isn't permanent. It moves your mind to a place of peace while doing it, but when you stop doing it and rejoin the world, well, being overwhelmed happens again quickly. I'm reminded of an old Zig Ziglar quote.

“People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.”

Meditation too.

But sometimes it's hard to make time for meditation during a busy day, when we are at work, or even when home but surrounded by yelling kids and other busy-ness. In these situations I do what I call a time out. No, this isn't the same timeout as you send your kids on when they are misbehaving. It's a way to reset things, kind of a mini meditation session.

Here's what I do.

I close my eyes. Take a deep breath, hold it for a second, then let it out slowly. And repeat. Then a third time. This third time when I hold the breath for a second or two, I listen to the world while trying to avoid listening to my mind chatter about it. Breath in. Listen: cars passing by, birds singing, cicada buzzing, people talking, the copy machine xeroxing away. Breath out. Repeat. If I'm in a place where that might attract attention and comment, like in the office, I'll keep it to just a few breaths. If I am at home or a cafe or somewhere that people probably aren't going to pay too much attention to me, I'll go for several breaths, up to a few minutes. The best place to do it is outside in a park where you can hear nature, but anywhere works. Just the lack of visual stimulation, the deep breaths to calm the nerves, and the slight meditation exercise of silencing the inner voice by paying attention to everything around you.

That's it. It's a very simple exercise, one I think anyone can do. I find just that by itself can help calm me, reduce the constant noise, pressure, and overwhelmed feeling of daily life.

Next time you feel a little frazzled from daily life, give it a shot. Take a time out.

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.