Pay Attention!

Tucker and I walked to the bus stop this morning, reading a book like always. He pointed to the sky and told me he had learned about the moon. He wanted to say more, but I cut him off.

“Pay attention, Tucker!”

After my outburst, I kept reading. A few minutes later, the bus came around the corner. I closed the book. Hurriedly, Tucker pointed to the sky again and told me that particular moon was a waxing crescent. He ran onto the bus, and I stood there, a bit stunned. What happened? I was sure he hadn’t heard one word of the book. Why, oh why, couldn’t he pay attention?? Frustrated, I walked home.

Then, hours later, I had one of those A-HA! moments. It wasn’t that Tucker wasn’t paying attention. He was, but not to the book I was reading. All his attention was focused on the moon still visible in the morning sky.

As this realization hit me, I felt embarrassed. Tucker wasn’t the only one who struggled with paying attention. A very similar experience had just occurred to me earlier this week.

I walk my dog, Bailey, in the mornings. There is a path lined with trees, bushes, and plenty of shade. It’s my favorite. In the warmer months, and especially in the mornings, there are also many, many spiders and their huge, fantastical webs.

This particular morning was very ordinary. We started on our walk as usual. Because it was morning, I was watching carefully for any spiderwebs that crossed my path. As time passed, I started reading something on my phone. I had already walked by all the typical places where most of the spiders were, so I let myself become completely engrossed in the words on my screen.

All of a sudden, my entire face and head were covered with a sticky web. I had walked straight into a massive spiderweb, complete with a garden spider and all its prey sprinkled around. The web stuck to me like syrup. And despite semi-wanting to love all of God’s creatures, I totally freaked out. I slapped my head and face repeatedly, brushing my hair wildly away from my scalp. I knew the spider was there somewhere. I bent over and shook my head, slapping everything I could. The spider, which was massive, fell from my head and landed on the sidewalk.

I stopped flailing.

The spider didn’t move.

I feel safe in assuming that we both were in a state of complete shock and panic. In a split second, the spider rallied and ran into the grass. I spent the rest of my walk trying to wipe any spiderweb remains off my arms, neck, face, and shoulders.

Again, what happened?

Well, just like Tucker, I was paying attention to something other than what was in front of me. In this case, it was my phone. I was looking down at the screen, and not anywhere else. I was swallowed up by a spiderweb because I wasn’t paying attention to the path ahead. I don’t think my phone was the problem here. I read on my phone all the time—articles, news, books, all of it. But when all my attention was on my screen, I couldn’t avoid the spider or his web. And frankly, I don’t like walking through spiderwebs. Especially spiderwebs with big ol’ spiders on them.

Where to focus your attention can be a struggle for everyone. Driving a car seems pretty straightforward, yet so many of us pay attention to our phones first and the driving becomes secondary. Crazy, right? Reading on my phone is fine, but probably not the best idea when I’m walking. Look at your own life. Are you giving your attention to the things you want to?

I had a good reminder this week. A freaky, spider-y reminder. Examine your focus, and make whatever changes you need so you only walk through spiderwebs if you want to.