Put It On A Shelf

A wise man that I knew once told me a story about a wise leader who was summoned to adjudicate an acrimonious dispute between two highly intelligent and belligerent individuals in a high profile organization. The two individuals were deeply committed, well liked, and extremely valuable to the organization. The dispute had been festering for several months, and no resolution was in sight. Factions were formed, distrust deepened, and many thought that the dispute would ruin the organization.

Finally, the wise leader entered the fray. He called the two warring parties together. He listened carefully, nodded attentively, and allowed each party to vent their respective frustrations. He then called in the man who told me the story (who had absolutely nothing to do with the situation), and blamed the entire dispute on him. LOL. When the meeting was over, the leader never talked about what happened, and advised everyone else to change the subject whenever the dispute was mentioned, referred or alluded to. Eventually, the uproar evaporated.

The wise man who told me this story told me that when the meeting was over, the wise leader told him that “you don’t have to make a big fuss about everything. Sometimes you gotta put things on a shelf and let them die for lack of attention.”

In his 1971 book Designing Organizations For An Information Rich World,” the computer scientist Herbert A. Simon argued that in “an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” 

This insight has lead to the idea of the attention-economy.  Today, companies compete for our attention.  The more competition there is for our attention, the more valuable and limited it becomes—and it already limited.  One statistic paints a grim picture of just how limited our attention is.  Researchers have found that the average human attention span is now less than eight seconds, which is the less than the attention span of a goldfish.  We spend our days in a never ending cycle of  swiping, clicking, and scrolling.  Companies no longer want our money.  They want our attention.  Because if they can get our attention, they will eventually get our money. 

All of this brings me to a simple question: On what or whom is your attention? Whomever or whatever controls your attention also controls what you do, what you think, and how you feel. Whatever you feed grows. Whatever you starve dies. If you want to eliminate a problem, a feeling, or a relationship, starve it of your attention.

While the attention economy might be a new, the idea of being more careful custodians of our attention is not.  A woman was once brought to Jesus who had been caught in the act of adultery. The scriptures inform us that the men behind the inquisition wanted Jesus to pronounce her as guilty, and give them permission to stone her. But Jesus’ response to the entire matter is quite instructive. According to John 8:6-9,

…Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

In the face of their accusations, Jesus stooped on the ground and starting writing “as though he heard them not.” Eventually, they all dropped their rocks. Jesus forgave the woman, and the case was closed.

Sometimes, the best way to fight rock throwers is to ignore them. Sometimes, the best antidote to argument, disagreement, frustration, conflict and boredom is better attention management.

You don’t have to make a lot a fuss about everything. You can just put it on a shelf and let it die for lack of attention.