40+FAB Blog
Is it neglect or focus?
Focus is a great strength that helps me to accomplish much, but I need to watch out for the weakness of blindness it could create around me. It’s so easy to focus on the project and be blinded to my lack of a healthy lifestyle, it’s easy to focus on building my career but be blinded to the needs of my family, it’s easy to focus on the next promotion and be blinded to building positive relationships with colleagues, it’s easy to focus on my mission yet blinded to those helping me accomplish my goals, it’s easy to focus on my results and be blinded to my responsibility for appropriate actions.
I believe the law of focus is only meant for one thing at one time and not for that one thing at all times. Focus if not positively managed could easily skew to become an obsession, which causes one to operate in the law of neglect towards other important things.
There is a time to step away from what we focus on and then come back to it with a fresh pair of eyes. The eagle takes a panoramic view of the terrain where it is going for its prey. It locks its focus, swoops in, grabs the prey and then soars back out to where it has a view of the big picture once again. Its survivability relies on its ability to repeat this process time and time again.
Sometimes it’s easy to use what we call the law of focus as a cover to actually practice the law of neglect. For I would much rather work on the things that interest me rather than deal with the responsibility of other things that are very necessary yet seemingly mundane.
I have learnt to take breaks from the things I focus on to capture the big picture once again. It is also important to have a few people in my life who are able to point out my blind spots and keep me aware of and accountable for anything that I have missed which may have the potential to eventually harm me and others.
“We are only as blind as we want to be.” – Maya Angelou
