Winifred Gallagher's husband begins calling their home 'Harmonia' when her experience with cancer treatment marvelously focuses her mind on the 'now' and the happiness one must find in that now (if there may be no tomorrow).
I'm reading 'Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life' by Winifred Gallagher (published April 2009).
From early in the book (page 5):
'As the poet says in Beowulf, 'Every life has more than enough sadness and more than enough joy.' By skillfully managing your attention, you're able to experience both in a balanced way and stay oriented in a positive, productive direction. John Milton might have been thinking of the power of focus when he wrote: 'The mind in its own place, and in itself / Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.'
I like the heav'n 'n' hell bit from Milton. It reminds me of someone (can't remember who) suggesting that they were the same place, and we got to make our own judgment about whether we were 'up there' or 'down there' - because the after-life was going to be simply a heightened, intensified version of how we experience this life. If you like what you've got now, good! You're getting more of it. If you don't like what you have now, guess what?
I also like the notion that our life is composed of the things to which we pay attention. And that the paying of attention changes outcomes. That fits with the quantum physics suggestion that we can't observe anything without changing it.
And this all operates with a little more scientific vigor than does the power of positive thinking incorporated into pop-psych books like 'The Secret.'
In Rapt, Ms. Gallagher suggests that our quality of life depend on that to which we pay attention, and how we choose to pay attention. We may be limited in our abilities to focus (and often we may split our focus inappropriately), but Ms. Gallagher delivers good news: We have more control over our focus than we think, and that control gives us the capacity to influence our experience.
Referencing scientific research and personal stories, Ms. Gallagher's 'Rapt' gives important new meaning to the command: 'Pay Attention!'
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