Day off Adventures

Back when I had a desk job. I had to get out of my seat when I really needed to think. When the answers weren't coming to me, or they were, but too fast for me to get my head around them, I would walk. I remember pacing around the office, wandering through the book stacks at D.H. Hill Library, and walking through the woods behind McGregor Village.

That was back when focus was my strength. My ability to block out everything extraneous and think solely about the problem at hand was what made me good at what I did. These day, though, focus is my weakness. There are so many thoughts, fears, stressors and hurts running through my head and through my heart that processing complex problems has become a Sisyphean task: by the time I jam the last thought into my crowded little brain the first has floated away.

So now I've found that more is necessary to hold my focus. I've begun using music. No particular song or genre is necessary, just hit shuffle and go. The beat, or the baseline, the melody, or the rhythm will hold my focus, without drawing my attention, so that my mind doesn't wander away from the problem I'm trying to think through. It's centering and it has allowed my to regain my focus.

So these days, when I want to think, or write, or process, I walk AND listen to music. Some times the music affects my thinking, sometimes it doesn't, but it's always relevant to the process.