Distraction and Anxiety
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One
Anxiety and Distraction
If the amount of people on medication and in counseling is any indication at all, then this is the most anxious civilization in human history. Never have so many people, and especially so many young people, been so horribly anxious so much of the time. And it doesn’t seem like it can possibly be a coincidence that this is also the civilization which has, through technology, given us the widest array and the most constant availability of distraction in human history.
In fact, not only does anxiety cause us to go looking for distraction, but much more fundamentally, it is distraction that is the cause of our anxiety.
Two
Focus, Peace and Recollection
We can see that anxiety and distraction go together just by reflecting on the way that peace and focus go together.
Focus and recollection are the way we gather together our different mental and emotional powers. Focus and recollection is a uniting of the powers of our soul, by directing those powers on a single target. That’s why focus means peace, because when we focus ourselves, we “collect” or “recollect” ourselves all in the same place, all harmoniously pursuing the same subject, or idea, or good.
That’s why focus is such a blessing. It allows something outside ourselves to bring everything inside ourselves us into peace and harmony.
Three
The Blessing of Focus
Focus requires that there is something that is multifaceted and rich that we can dedicate the powers of our souls to. It requires something that can bring and should bring the different threads of our mind together for a long time.
A good, insightful friend, this person can make us focus on a worthwhile conversation again and again, for hours at a time. A really worthwhile project, something at work, or maybe something at home, something that calls forth skill from you, and attention, and even love, for hours and days and weeks. The glory of nature, or an artistic masterpiece, you can sit before it in silence again and again, looking, appreciating, thanking God. The beauty of your spouse and kids, if you can focus on them, on what years have taught you to appreciate, on the new things God is doing in their life.
Most of all, that’s why God and all He has done, and His will for our lives, that is a great good that can bring the powers of our soul together in prayer day after day.
If you attend to these things, if you learn to attend to them long and well, to give them the focus they deserve, these things will give you peace and joy and tranquility.
Four
The Rack of Distraction
Distraction, on the other hand, doesn’t unite your mind or your heart or your faculties. Distraction causes you to look at this, and then look at that. To think about this, then think about that. To comment over here, and then post over there. Distraction pulls you in all kinds of conflicting directions.
Distraction is like the rack, that ancient torture instrument, that pulled your body in all different directions. Then, when it was over, the body was so sore from being abused that way that it couldn’t do anything – it was just limp.
That’s what you do to your soul when you give yourself over to distraction. You pull your mind apart, you stress it; which is why we say an anxious person is stressed. And when the distraction is over, your mind is just useless and limp
It’s torture, except that instead of the Middle Ages, now we do this spiritual racking to ourselves.
Five
Get Rid of Distraction
You have to get rid of the rack. You have to get rid of screens, especially in your house. The phone has to be put away before breakfast and after dinner, at least, and so do the laptops. And then do the things that will bring focus and peace to the soul.
Develop the habit of focusing on your prayer, on a project or a skill, on your family, on a friendship, on the beauty of God’s world, and allow the goodness of that object, which you focus on, to bring harmony to your mind and heart.