Choose your distractions (or they will choose you)

Life is full of distractions.

You can’t avoid them.

They choose when and where to come at you.

Some of them come from within you.

Have you ever tried to sit is silence and still your mind for even five minutes?

What happened?

So, if you think you will find a place to be free of distractions, give up.

The best you can do is make friends with your distractions.

“But what if I don’t want to be friends with my distractions?”

Good question and you have a point.

We may not be able to stop distractions from coming at us in life. But we can choose more of what kind of distractions we will be around.

What distractions are likely to come at you at Disney World versus the ones that are likely to come at you in Las Vegas?

When you choose where to be in life, you choose what kinds of distractions are likely to come up most often in life.

I once worked at a place where my coworkers and I took a lot of breaks to “go get coffee.” Some days, we “went for coffee” two or three times a day.

“Get coffee” was code for: “Go offsite to complain about working here.”

One day, I came home from work and my wife said: “I am so tired of listening to you complain about your job. It’s all you do!”

She was right. When I thought about what she said, I thought about all those times I “went for coffee” with my coworkers. All those hours complaining to each other.

I thought: “How much more time do we spend complaining than doing something about whatever we don’t like? Is it possible we’re spending more time complaining about work than doing actual work?”

That’s when I knew I had to change or leave that place.

I chose to leave. First, because I never again wanted to hear my wife say she was tired of listening to me complain about work. Second, because nobody asked coworkers to “go for coffee” more than I did. I was one of the chief creators of negative distraction for my coworkers. I needed to remove myself for the good of everyone.

I learned a lesson: In life, I must choose my surroundings as much as I can. I must choose to be in places where the distractions will be mostly good.

And I must work hard to make sure that, when I make the distractions, they are good ones.

I started working from home about seven years ago.

If you never worked from home until this year, you are finding out that home has as many distractions as the office. Maybe more. Especially now.

Back in March, my wife started working from home, too. My son also switched from going to school down the street to going to school in our living room. On any weekday, you will find all three of us doing our work within ten feet of each other.

This is not ideal.

Distractions are at an all time high in my life.

But, oh! What lovely distractions! What precious distractions!

To put this pandemic year in the right place, I often think about a time in the future when our son gets his driver’s license or goes off to college. When he has his own life and we wonder if he will ever call or visit.

How much will I miss this year with him then?

How much will I miss all of the distractions he makes in my life?

When I’m hard at work on a project and he says in his little eight-year old voice: “Dad, can you play?”

That is the kind of distraction I only get for a moment in life. Soon, it will be gone forever. I’m so thankful for it now.

Life is full of distractions.

But only some of those distractions are full of life.

Learn to know which ones and welcome them with joy and thanksgiving.

Grace and peace.