In the rush to “get things done” and be “productive,” in the obsession to “maximize time,” the consequence is fragmentation.
Conversations fragmented into text messages, diluted into lines of words shuttled back and forth. At times words barely thought out, reacting to whatever is at hand.
News and information fragmented into click-baiting headlines, squares and video bytes to scroll through. The whole story chopped up into little pieces, like the food of a toddler. Is it any surprise that most news and information these days gets selectively consumed, with bits and pieces thrown against a wall or smashed to smithereens for the sake of entertainment and discord?
Time fragmented into slivers and slices as people get pulled back and forth between conflicting priorities and the agendas of others throughout a day. In hacking time for productivity, time has truly been hacked into a million little pieces so trying to do something focused and meaningful is a rarity and a challenge.
Attention fragmented as people try to process the conversation fragments, the news and information fragments, the slivers and slices of conflicting priorities and the agendas of others. All the discombobulated pieces tossed into the jar of our minds to clash around noisily, interrupting and distracting from being present, from abiding in God, abiding in our true selves. Stirring up panic, obscuring peace.
A great deception that has been curated and cultivated is that we have to exist in this fragmented dystopia to be successful and relevant. We have to keep up with the noise and hype, try to hold it together as we live from the outside-in.
Yet the great truth is: we don’t. We don’t have to do any of it.
I have agency to live my life in a different way, and I am rerouting my habits towards wholeness, presence. To understand I own my time and attention, I hold the key to my mind and what I will allow in.
You have agency over your life. You own your time and attention. You hold the key to your mind and what you allow in.
We have agency over our lives. We own our time and attention. We hold the key to our minds and what we allow in.
Now to take hold of that agency and make space to figure out how to live, how we were created as humans to live. To intentionally be quiet and slow down, to question and examine the ideas and habits carrying us through our days. Where did they come from? Where do they lead?
And then the hard work comes, the work of the heart, mind, and spirit to tear down what is no longer serving us and clearing, rerouting the path toward what is life-giving and whole.
A place where
attention is whole. Where I can be absorbed and present, clearly seeing what is in front of me. At peace, confident and joyful in my work, leisure, interactions with others.
time is a gift and a space to do the things I’m called to do. In a moment, in a day, and a lifetime. It’s not something I have to fight and hack and manage, but something that I allow to unfold and hold the things that exist in it. The fabric of time: strong, flexible, practical, beautiful.
news and information are carefully monitored and filtered with discernment. It does not overload or control, but serves and actually….informs. Gives life. Allows me to make decisions with wisdom and confidence.
conversations that go beyond yeses and nos and the simple answering of questions are able to run their full course in-person, complete with facial expressions and body language and the physical presence of other humans. I can listen carefully instead of striving to say the right thing or give the right actions to take.
This is where I am now. In the process of identifying, discerning, tearing down and rerouting…figuring out what the new things even look like. I don’t have all the answers, I just know I want wholeness and joy and my old way of doing things was producing fragmentation and anxiety.
This is an offering of vulnerability in laying out what I am learning; this is an encouragement to others who feel tired and fragmented to take hold of their agency and seek their path towards wholeness and joy.
May we allow the God of all truth, grace, and peace to be with us on this journey.
Amen.
Sindy Hankins 