Back in February, a line of text from an essay I was reading jumped off the page.
“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
—Mary Oliver, from Upstream
First, I underlined it in the book. Then I sketched out the quote in my notebook. In the past several months, I found myself telling people about this one line. Even out of context, stand alone, it seemed to have an impact.
Like many, I have struggled with too much screen time, mindless social and news consumption, and hyper awareness of digital alerts. I don’t need to write a post lecturing about the woes of digital addiction. Rather, I want to work on reclaiming the present moment and bringing intention to where I place my focus.
Sometimes when I find myself drifting or falling into a social feed, this line comes back to me like a mantra. Attention is the beginning of devotion. It is a subtle nudge to be mindful and reset. And then it begs the question: Is this what I want to be devoted to?
The answer, especially when I was near people I loved, was always emphatically no. I wanted to be present for the people in front of me.
An email will be there later. This moment, this now, happens just once, and then is gone.