Day 7: What doesn't ask

I've spent much of my life believing the answer to most things is to try harder, work a little longer and think a little more. All in service of prioritisation and delivery. And sometimes that's exactly what's needed.

Lately though, I've been wondering whether striving can also become a way of not noticing.

We live in an attention economy. Companies compete for our attention. Platforms are designed to hold it. Entire industries depend on keeping us looking.

What if that's the clue? If so many people want our attention, it must be worth something.

Commercially, attention is something to capture, hold, convert. But could its human value be different?

After all, attention is one of the ways we tell someone they matter. In small actions. When we listen without preparing our reply. Notice when someone isn't quite themselves. Look up when someone walks into the room.

And yet we give it away so easily. To the next notification, headline or the thing that demands a response.

I wonder whether we've become better at responding to what asks for our attention at the expense of noticing what doesn't. The ordinary moments which don't demand our attention but warrant it. The conversation we're half listening to. The person waiting for us to look up. The ordinary Tuesday that turns out, years later, to have been extraordinary.

None of these moments necessarily announces its importance.

And perhaps that's what makes attention so valuable. Not because it's scarce or because someone can sell it. Those things are true and often written about. But perhaps our attention is valuable because we get to choose where we place it. And in doing so, what we make room for.

Not everything that captures our attention deserves it. And I'm learning that not everything that deserves it will ask.