Down which tunnel do you stare? It helps to pay attention.

Take a few steps back and make sure it is the best one for you.

Sometimes, we get tunnel vision gazing into that intoxicating, luminescent little device in our hand. Other times it is peering deeply into a personal slight or a missed opportunity. Toxic reminiscence. A fixation on the unchangeable past. Our ego clings to these.

So too our infatuation with hoping things will not go bad in the future. Stare ahead with worried eyes long enough and we live our whole lives in anticipatory regret or fear.

In these moments, we might remind ourselves each of us can decide what we focus on.

It’s okay to take the occasional reading on a problem or a challenge. But, keeping that negative in your sights long-term? Tough to engage with the real act of living when we do that. I know

I am usually better off when my focus is on the people around me. Or on real trees, plants, and soil—a world I can touch and smell.