Category: Distraction

Focus & “Workus Interruptus”

I am listening to a Headspace meditation series on Focus this week. My middle name is “distractible.” You too?! We all struggle to stay on task with everyone and their brother or sister clamoring for our attention.

Wait… what’s that over there? A shiny object!
The to-do list calls. “Yoo-hoo. You forgot something.”
I add Something. Capital ‘S’? Little ‘s’? Either way, is it necessary? Did I stop what I was doing? YAASSS! :angry:

Workus interruptus. It’s a new Latin term recently resurrected from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California. Really. Just last week. You didn’t hear about it? WI as they called it to save time was brand new back in the day just after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and the Latin speakers then (yes, there were a few) coined the term. A careless tourist to Los Angeles dropped the WI write-up while visiting the area that is now the La Brea Tar Pits, where the dinosaur bones were buried in the muck.

No one wanted to go in to fish out the term at the time, and WI only reinserted itself into the lexicon as the tectonic plates shifted ever so slightly, bubbling new tar and the term workus interruptus to the surface. Last week. It was in the news.

What a find!

[P.S. Spell Check is having a FIT right now. “Fix it. Fix it!” she says underlining furiously. I think she’s having a fainting ‘spell.’]

The Headspace app does not mention this phenomenon directly. But it does mention, of course, the importance of being aware of distractions and interruptions. One of the tricks Andy Puddicombe (the founder of Headspace) mentions is clearing your workspace. Think “Outer Order, Inner Calm” as in Gretchen Rubin’s book.

So, I will busy myself cleaning my desk drawers. Talk about workus interruptus!?!? :slight_smile:

Spell check has given up. :woman_shrugging:

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Skipping Out

Skipping Rocks in the Pacific Ocean

Off Season

Craving fresh air, we head to the beach on a particularly fine winter day in Southern California. We do not go often, and yet we live within a 30-minute drive. The beach this day is gloriously empty.

The best part about the ocean is that she doesn’t change much. She’s so rare. And yet she doesn’t care. But to be fair, there’s so much to spare, whether it’s this ocean here or an ocean anywhere, she’s just there.

Take off your shoes and roll up your jeans. Approach the water like a merchant marine. Start with one toe, and then dip the other nine. After a while, you will feel sublime. You might pick up a rock, and taking a firm grip, toss it sideways and count the skips. My brother was good. He could do five or six.

On Season

The beaches are crowded in the summer months. Oh, and parking is diabolically difficult. The locals know to carpool and to come early.

If you go in the summer, you’ll see wall-to-wall sunbathers, families, boys, girls, men, and women. Umbrellas of all sizes, shapes, and colors dot the beach. People mostly just hang out. Read. Play. Talk. Eat. Relax. Seagulls hang around trying to look bored but give themselves away when a morsel of food drops. “Mine, mine, mine,” they seem to say. The best idea is to stay out of their way.

If the wind is just right, you might see kites fluttering in the sky. Don’t you like kites?

Be ready to smile as you watch the children splashing and playing in the waves. They don’t seem to feel the cold or get tired of being sandy, salty, and wet. I miss being a kid.

Any Time

Almost any time of the year at certain posted beaches, you’ll see big dogs, little dogs, and medium-sized dogs of all kinds, on and off leash. It’s a sniffer’s heaven. They all seem to love being at the ocean.

We think the ocean doesn’t care. But she secretly likes visitors. I think so, or why would she be so inviting all the time? She even likes surfers.

Skip out sometime. Take your dog, your kids, and anyone else that needs a nature hit down to the nearest ocean. Or a lake. Or a park. Skip out. Take a break. It’ll do you some good.

Photo by Jonathan Petersson on Pexels.com

Listening

 

Hello! Raise your hand if you want to be better at conversations. Great. Me, too. So here’s a TED talk with 11 million (!) views. What’s one of the secrets?

LISTENING

 

Another? Be brief. So I’m going to do that. Enjoy!

While

While I’m showering, I’m thinking about my workday.

While I’m working, I’m preoccupied with dinner.

RestaurantWhile I’m eating dinner, I’m hoping to avoid doing dishes.

While I’m doing dishes, I ponder how I can escape the laundry.

While I’m folding laundry, I’m musing about shopping.

While shopping the next day, I review my to-do list for the weekend.

While shtupping on the weekend, I think about the movie I saw on Tuesday.

While watching the movie, I was comparing it to the book.

While reading the book I was thinking about dying.

While I’m dying, I’ll be wondering what it was like to live.

 

I missed it.

 

 

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