Beyond Change

Tag: life

  • The Love of Our Attention

    The Love of Our Attention

    How divided attention can leave us lonely even when we are together

    Recently, I found myself sitting with people I love, sharing the same table and occupying the same physical space, yet feeling strangely alone. Their bodies were present, but much of their attention was elsewhere inside messages, notifications, and one short video after another.

    I noticed the same thing while driving them through New York City. Outside the car windows, the city was constantly unfolding streets, buildings, bridges, neighborhoods, and countless small scenes of life. Yet their heads were often lowered, their eyes fixed on their phones. An entire living city was passing beside them, but the small screen in their hands seemed to exert the stronger pull. I found that power astonishing.

    It made me reflect on a particular kind of loneliness: the loneliness we can experience in the presence of other people.

    There was a time when absence meant that someone was physically far away. Today, a person can sit directly across from us and still be unreachable. We may see their face, hear their voice for a moment, and even share a meal with them, yet feel that we are competing with an endless stream of digital stimulation.

    I do not believe technology itself is the enemy. Our phones allow us to communicate across distances, find information, capture memories, and remain connected to people we love. Nor does every moment of entertainment need to be profound. There is nothing wrong with enjoying something light or amusing.

    The difficulty begins when our use is no longer conscious when we do not choose to reach for the phone but simply find it in our hands; when one harmless distraction becomes twenty; when the small rewards of novelty repeatedly pull us away from the living person in front of us.

    We consume images and videos that entertain us for a few seconds and disappear from memory almost immediately. Meanwhile, the city beyond the window goes unseen. A conversation that might have deepened a relationship never happens. A story someone wanted to tell remains unfinished. A look of affection goes unnoticed. A moment that could have become a meaningful memory quietly passes.

    What are we exchanging for those few seconds of stimulation?

    My practice of yoga and meditation has made me increasingly sensitive to the movement of attention. It has not made me immune to distraction, and I do not write this from a place of superiority. I also know the pull of the screen. Practice has simply helped me notice when my mind has wandered and taught me that I can bring it back.

    That simple act of returning is at the heart of awareness.

    In meditation, we notice that the mind has moved away, and without anger or judgment, we return to the breath, the mantra, or the present moment. Perhaps our relationships need the same practice. We notice that our attention has been captured, and we gently return to the face before us, to the voice speaking, to the meal we are sharing, and to the life taking place now.

    Attention may be one of the purest forms of love. When we give someone our undivided attention, even briefly, we communicate something without words: You matter. I see you. This moment with you is worthy of my presence.

    The opposite is also felt, even when it is never spoken. Repeatedly looking away can communicate: Something elsewhere may be more interesting than you. That may not be our intention, but it can still be the experience we create for another person.

    This is not a call to reject our phones or withdraw from modern life. It is an invitation to examine our relationship with attention. Are we using technology, or are we being carried by habits we have stopped noticing? Are we choosing what deserves our awareness, or surrendering it to whatever appears next on a screen?

    We can begin with small acts. We can keep our phones away during a meal. We can finish listening before reaching for a notification. We can notice the impulse to escape a quiet moment and take one conscious breath instead. We can look into another person’s eyes and allow ourselves to be fully there.

    These choices may seem small, but a life is made from small moments of attention. What we repeatedly attend to gradually becomes the substance of our days.

    The people we love will not always be seated across from us. The conversations available today may not be available tomorrow. Presence cannot be saved for later, replayed, or recovered once the moment has passed.

    Perhaps awareness begins with remembering this: the person in front of us is not interrupting what is happening on our screen. The screen may be interrupting a moment of life that will never happen in exactly the same way again.

  • All I Need

    All I Need

    What do I really need?

    It is such a simple question, yet sometimes it takes decades to discover the answer.

    For me, that question began around 1999.

    Several evenings each week, after work, I would ride the 7 train into Grand Central and transfer to the downtown 6 train on my way to Baruch College. My employer had enrolled me in a Project Management certification program, and I was determined to succeed. At that point in my life, I was completely in career mode. I believed that every certification, every class, and every accomplishment would move me closer to the life I wanted.

    Like so many New Yorkers, I escaped the noise of the subway by putting on my headphones. Back then I carried a bright yellow Sony Sports Walkman, the splash resistant cassette player that seemed to go everywhere with me. I loved that little Walkman. As the train rattled through the tunnels beneath Manhattan, I would press play, shutting out the screech of the rails, the station announcements, and the endless rhythm of the city. One song seemed to accompany me on almost every ride: All I Need by Matchbox Twenty.

    As I listened, I found myself asking a question that I could never quite answer.

    What do I really need?

    At the time, I believed the answer was simple. I needed more education, another certification, more experience, and a better career. I believed that if I kept climbing, eventually I would arrive somewhere that felt complete.

    One evening during class, our professor asked a question that has stayed with me ever since.

    “What does a project need in order to be successful?”

    My classmates talked about planning, budgets, schedules, communication, stakeholders, and deliverables. Every answer was technically correct.

    Then it was my turn.

    I remember saying that before any project could truly be successful, it first had to satisfy the needs of the individual managing it.

    Several classmates disagreed. They argued that the purpose of a project is to satisfy the stakeholders, not the project manager. Looking back, I understand why they challenged me. The truth is that I could not fully explain what I meant either.

    I only knew it felt true.

    What I wanted to say, but did not yet have the words for, was that if the person leading the project is disconnected from themselves, no amount of planning will ever create a meaningful life. You can complete the project, deliver it on time, stay within budget, and receive recognition, and still feel that something is missing.

    At the time, I could not explain it.

    Today, almost three decades later, I finally can.

    I completed the certification. I passed the exam. I became a certified project manager. For years I managed successful projects. They were completed on schedule, within budget, and according to plan. From the outside, everything looked successful.

    Inside, however, something felt deeply out of place.

    It was not because I disliked the work, and it was not because I was not good at it. It was because I felt trapped. I was living inside a system that rewarded results but rarely asked whether the person producing those results was truly alive inside.

    Little by little, I realized that what I had been searching for on those subway rides was not another credential. It was not another promotion. It was not another title.

    What I was searching for was freedom.

    Freedom to make decisions that reflected my own values.

    Freedom to create instead of simply execute.

    Freedom to explore questions that fascinated me instead of only solving problems that belonged to someone else.

    Freedom to build a life instead of merely building a career.

    Looking back, I realize that the young woman sitting on that subway was not really asking, “What career do I want?”

    She was asking a much deeper question.

    “What kind of life do I want?”

    The answer had been quietly following me all along, hidden inside a song playing through that bright yellow Sony Sports Walkman.

    Today, when I ask myself the same question that I asked on those subway rides so many years ago, the answer is finally clear.

    What do I really need?

    Freedom.

    Not freedom from responsibility.

    Not freedom from work.

    But the freedom to live according to my own beliefs, to continue learning, to continue creating, and to wake up each morning knowing that the life I am living is truly my own.

    It took years, mistakes, careers, successes, disappointments, and countless rides through New York City to understand that.

    Sometimes the greatest project we will ever manage is not the one assigned to us by an employer.

    It is the lifelong project of discovering who we really are.

  • Mental Health Begins with Being

    Mental Health Begins with Being

    Mental health is a subject that deserves our attention. We often think about healing in terms of therapy, medication, meditation, or different healing practices. While all of these approaches have value, I believe there is another question we should ask before beginning any healing journey:

    Who are we?

    For more than ten years, I have returned to a book that has had a profound influence on the way I think about this question: The Book of Not Knowing. Every time I open it, I am reminded of the importance of authenticity and the nature of being.

    One of the central questions the book asks is remarkably simple:

    What is being?

    To answer that, I think we first need to understand the difference between the self and being.

    The Self and Being

    The self is a collection of characteristics, memories, beliefs, experiences, and roles that come together to create an idea of who we are—or perhaps more accurately, who we think we are.

    I think that distinction is important.

    Being, on the other hand, is intrinsic. It is what you truly are, independent of labels, achievements, or the stories you tell yourself.

    A plant is intrinsically a plant. It cannot be anything else. A book is a book. An orange is an orange.

    These things simply are what they are.

    Human beings are different because we have the remarkable ability to identify ourselves with ideas. We can identify with our profession, our past, our successes, our failures, or even our fears. Sometimes we become so attached to these identities that we begin to mistake them for who we truly are.

    The Importance of Authenticity

    Authenticity means allowing yourself to be what you already are.

    You cannot truly become someone else.

    Yet many of us spend years trying to do exactly that. We compare ourselves with others, try to meet expectations that are not our own, or create identities that move us further away from our authentic nature.

    I believe that this distance from our true being can contribute to stress, frustration, emotional pain, and many of the struggles that affect our mental health.

    The more disconnected we become from ourselves, the more difficult it can be to experience genuine peace.

    Healing Begins with Understanding

    So how do we begin to heal?

    I think the first step is understanding the difference between the self and being.

    Whatever path of healing we choose—whether it is meditation, therapy, neuroscience, philosophy, or another practice—it helps to approach that journey with a deeper understanding of who we really are.

    Not from the perspective of our labels.

    Not from the perspective of our intellect.

    But from the perspective of being itself.

    For me, that is where healing truly begins.

    A Passage Worth Reflecting On

    One sentence from The Book of Not Knowing has stayed with me for many years:

    “Being is what we really are. It is what is simply so.”

    Every time I read those words, I pause.

    They remind me that perhaps the purpose of life is not to become someone else, but to discover what has always been there.

    Our Roles Are Not Our Identity

    Of course, we all have roles in society.

    We become doctors, teachers, lawyers, pilots, artists, surfers, or countless other things. These roles are important because they help us function in the world and communicate with one another.

    But they are still roles.

    They are not the essence of who we are.

    There is a deeper part of ourselves that exists before every title, every profession, and every label.

    Perhaps that is our true being.

    Final Thoughts

    These are simply some of my reflections, and I am grateful to have a place where I can share them with you.

    My hope is that this space becomes a community where we can explore consciousness, authenticity, and the human experience together—not by pretending to have all the answers, but by asking better questions.

    A Question to Reflect On

    If you removed every label you use to describe yourself—your profession, your achievements, your past, and even your beliefs—who would you be?