1:00PM
I sat at the kitchen table a few minutes ago, deeply focused on fixing the website and then my mom asked me something or handed me something from the mail, I can’t even remember. What she did was break my focus and for something, again, I don’t even remember.
I think this happens very often in my life, where I’ll be focused on something and someone will interrupt me, and then as a result, I’ll feel some sort of ill will towards them—angry, annoyed, confused, frustrated, etc. In this case, I felt it rising and then realized: if I wanted to be undistracted, I could have worked in a place with fewer distractions.
While I think I naturally react aversely to the person, I try to catch it and realize what I could have done differently to change the situation. Yes, they could have noticed that I’m very focused on the screen. Yes, they could have known that when I’m on the computer, I go into intense problem solving. Yes, they could know that I have specific deadlines and schedules.
And yet they’re also human, and as I said this morning, or alluded to, most of us don’t really know what’s going on in our own lives, let alone the lives of others. So someone interrupting me may not be doing it to “break my focus” but to share something that excited them, or confused them, or really made them feel something.
As I think of this, I remember how yesterday I went to my mom and shared something from my phone that I found hilarious—or if I break down the language from an “objective” adjective to a subjective experience, made me laugh. Only after I shared it did I realize that she was staring at a computer and looked somewhat deep in focus.
Instead of being in the environment that may tempt conversation and distraction, I could put myself in a different environment (i.e., the basement) and rid the temptation. If my mom feels super excited about something, will she feel excited enough to walk downstairs and find me or will she just wait?
I find this happens in so many scenarios in life. I remember being at a formal dinner somewhere, sitting at round tables and everyone going up to the buffet line to grab food. I sat with my back to another table and people kept squeezing behind me, bumping into me. I felt so annoyed and wished they would find another path. At one point, instead of blaming them, I tried something new. I moved my chair back just far enough that I was close to the other table behind me, to make it really uncomfortable for them to squeeze through. When the next person came up to me, he tried to squeeze and it was, yes, too awkward for him, and he rerouted behind the next table. I think one other person tried it behind me, and then rerouted as well. After that, all other people followed those two people behind the other table. It almost felt as if fish were trying to find their way through the river and I had dammed one part, and they just followed their friends elsewhere.
I tell this story to say that yes, we can sit here and blame other people for doing things to us, and most likely it won’t change anything. Or we can change the environment so that they are likely to change their behavior.
I prefer the latter—when I remember.
1:10PM
