What is worthy of our attention?

By Joe C, who writes at The Wisdom of Life:

There is an important distinction between those of us who understand public relations and its impact on our lives and those that don't: It is the understanding of how prone we are in general to the blind acceptance of the premises without even recognition of those premises embedded within communications.

For instance; when the media puts out a topic and many of us argue over whether it's true or not, how important it is or not, and so on... that energy we apply to the topic is the point – that we have accepted the premise and are now oriented around, and applying energy to the defined topic(s). Those of us who do not know the attention economy game might not ask more important questions like; “Is this topic worthy of discussion?” and “What will the community we live in and depend on gain if our energy is applied to this topic?” or “Who benefits if our focus is tied up on these defined points?” In a story-driven world, whoever defines the argument has already won.
Is what we are doing with our focus and energy an investment in the possibility of something better for the community we live in and depend on, or is it the useless or net negative effect of spending time with little chance of bearing fruit?
I could be missing something(s)

One of my goals for 2021 is to slow everything down. Slowing down can be difficult. It’s easy to slide into a mindset where more is better: more things done, more action and reaction, more audience, more conclusions jumped to in a short time. More emotion.  At least, it’s easy to do until you notice what mayhem is created by people in haste. Perhaps it is a person or people acting unfairly or foolishly because they do not have all the information about someone or a situation. Perhaps this does great damage.

Then, well, we might wish we had slowed down. This blog is part of my strategy for slowing down. Even if I am not aiming to write a lot, I tend to write more than I think I am going to. I put more thought into my words and tend to be more critical of them. There is little if any (ever) instant reaction to my thoughts so I am not greatly affected by concerns about who is reading and why. Although this blog is public, any potential readers have to make an effort to reach it, even if that effort is just remembering I exist. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

So how do we slow down? First step is to turn emotional reactiveness down, way down. Again this is challenging because we live in a space where emotional reaction is in high demand, because what grabs your attention grabs your emotions. Even if you are not a large consumer of click bait, there are models of thinking that prioritize emotional reactiveness. One of these is believing you are different, special, and likely to be misunderstood or mistreated by others. Categories of misunderstood and mistreated people do exist, but what are the consequences of nurturing a belief that you are in one of them? It’s quite likely you will go looking for offence, and find it most of the time.  

Since we perceive negative stimulation more sharply, we are likely to notice and keep noticing the slights and perceived insults of others. This easily leads to hurt, anger, outrage, and any number of other negatives. You may mainly hurt yourself  through this practice, but unfortunately you also open yourself up to people who know how to manipulate that emotional sensitivity. This is especially true if you are inclined to believe that feelings are always correct.

We can put a halt to this runaway train by asking the meta questions described above: “Is this topic worthy of discussion?” and “What will the community we live in and depend on gain if our energy is applied to this topic?” or “Who benefits if our focus is tied up on these defined points?

When should we ask those questions? Well, probably it would be best to ask them all the time. I probably don’t though. However, it is a good idea to try to notice when someone is particularly trying to get a reaction out of you, and at least ask them then. It’s good to pay attention to emotions and when they are strong and ask those questions.