Focusing and maintaining focus
A major part of getting anything done is focus. Sure, you could blow your day working at the amusement park just lazily hitting the button to dispatch the coaster, but without putting anything into it, the experience is taken away from some people trying to enjoy the park. For example, at my local fair, there are not even any words spoken, just waiting until the ride is full and then hitting a button to start and stop the ride. However, at Hershey Park, or Six Flags, there's a certain enthusiasm shared by all of the employees and it helps to give them their amazing reputation. These employees have a focus in their work, and every second that someone takes to focus on their job makes it that much more worthwhile.
My father told me a story that his grandfather shared with him, that every day he would go to work, and the supervisor would come by at the same two times every day. One of his coworkers would work extremely hard when the supervisor would walk by, and then slack off when there was nobody around. My great grandfather would put all of his effort into the work from the beginning until the end of the day, and would not seem as impressive to his supervisor. My father asked him why he would not just work harder to seem better in front of his supervisor, and he responded "I will make it much farther in life based on how I see myself working, rather than how other people are judging my work."
The amount of focus it takes to continue doing something for 30 minutes depends on what type of activity it is. For an activity that one enjoys, it could seem effortless, but with an activity that is unenjoyable, there would be so much focus lost by trying to think of where one would rather be. By focusing on what could be instead of what is, there is less focus put into the task at hand. My own level of focus is extremely low, in the short term, and I often end up doing something else which I would enjoy more. There is also a certain amount of focus to put into the beginning of an unenjoyable activity, in order to distract oneself from wishing to do something else.
One of the issues I have started to focus on much more intensely than I had before is the task of questioning. There are so many questions which are fundamental to our every day lifestyle which we just take for granted, or have a default response which will appease those around us. However, by questioning things as seemingly simple as "what do I think is funny?" or "how do I define beauty?"
The relevance of this is maintaining focus throughout answering questions. It is extremely difficult to continue thinking about something that we think we have well defined, since we can quickly and easily cast it off by defining it in the same way we believe we always have.
This situation can be applied to physiological changes in the body as well, which we must question. It's easy to notice some of these changes, especially flavors. Apples were one of my favorite fruits, and I would eat them almost every day when I was younger, but a few months ago, the taste started to change. I thought it must've just been the apples at my school, but I went back to my hometown and bought apples from a grocer, an organic market, and a local farm, but they all gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. I also used to eat whole pineapples in one serving, without feeling the slightest bit of damage to my taste buds from the acidity, however, now my tongue has become much more sensitive to this fruit and citruses. The reverse effect has happened with other foods though, and my appetite for rarer steaks, and celery have gone from absolute disgust to delicious, common snacks.
So who's to say there won't be such a rough transition between our emotional attitudes perhaps based on the situations we are in, and for some reason we believe that we are not supposed to question them. Or more likely, we go into this questioning believing that the answer will be the same in college as it was in middle school. It is true that some things might have changed naturally within this time, but there are also other things that have been altered within us. These alterations come from outside sources influencing us, both social and intellectual. One must question whether or not they will be influenced by social viewpoints to determine how we behave, or if we form our beliefs based on information we have found and believe to be true. There may be other belief systems to formulate opinions around such as spiritual, physical, or any mix of these information pools.
It took a lot of focus to pull through and get to writing something like this, especially since I've been wanting to play some computer games since a few hours ago, but once I got into the flow of writing, focusing on adding more ideas was easier and easier, and my desire to write overcame my desire to distract myself. I hope that through this new year I can gain more focus in my studies, and eliminate harmful distractions which do not align with my opinions of "time well spent," and to all of you who wish the same for yourselves, I wish you luck.
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