Usually once or twice a week my husband is at home when the sun rises and I can get outside to walk.
On these mornings I leap out of bed.
I love being outside first thing in the morning. I can walk the 1.5 mile loop in my neighborhood without ever seeing another person or even a car.
It is QUIET.
I love QUIET.
I have walked this loop dozens of times, but this morning I tripped.
Thankfully not flat on my face, but I did that awkward catching-of-your-balance-before-your-feet-are-in-the-right-place move. My big toe is still throbbing.
What happened?
(This is the part where I tell a dramatic story about how something caught my eye and I couldn’t help myself from looking and before I knew it I had sustained a life-threatening injury and it wasn’t my fault, and the only thing that would make the pain go away was a brownie sundae.)
But, the truth is always much simpler: I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.
I was paying attention to something else. Distracted. All on me. Nothing made me do it.
Just me.
My head was turned completely away from the direction I was traveling. My feet were moving forward but my eyes were elsewhere. Fixed on a beautiful house.
All of the houses in my neighborhood are beautiful and unique, but there is this one house that I love and I was admiring it and walking at the same time. Obviously, I was doing a better job in the admiring than I was walking.
My mind was wrapped up in all the ways I could make my house look like this beautiful, perfect house.
We need some flowers and fresh mulch.
We need some shutters, and maybe new windows.
We need a gardener and a professional landscape team.
And at that moment I stubbed my toe on the uneven sidewalk. I was wearing proper shoes, but the swing of my foot was timed perfectly so that my toe ran directly into the raised concrete lip of the uneven sidewalk.
It was a quick, and physical, reminder to pay attention.
Do you know where you are going?
Are you distracted by things not on your path?
Is comparison keeping you from seeing what you have?
Are you so focused on some future event that you are missing what is happening right now?
Where is your focus?
“The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives, and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” – Russell M. Nelson
I believe this, everyday.
No matter what is happening in our lives we determine where to fix our focus. And where we put that focus will determine our joy (or lack of it).
It is true, and I have a pain in my toe to remind me.
If you want help identifying where your focus is, you should click schedule your free call and let’s talk.
