Read this with focus

Months ago now, I read an article in Runner's World called "In Focus." It was about focusing your energy in one area and avoiding multitasking. It really spoke to me so I thought I'd look into the issue further by googling the book the author referred to. But on the way from my couch to my computer, I saw my guitar leaning against my wall. 'I need to practice!' I thought. I started practicing, "Dreaming with a Broken Heart" by John Mayer. After a few minutes of practice 'I need to learn a new song!', I decided, so I went to the internet to look up some more guitar tabs. 'Perhaps Jack Johnson has some good ones', I thought to myself, 'or maybe the Beatles!' But, then, oh look! Gmail notifier says I have an email from Kayak.com... flights nationwide for $47 each way?! Awesome, so maybe I'll buy my ticket to Vegas on there. But what am I gonna do in Vegas again? I should probably look up some national park hiking opportunities before I forget... At that moment, I glanced down from my computer and see my lame to do list, which consisted of about a thousand open checkboxes and one checked one that says "go to bank." I'm plagued with feelings of guilt that paralyze me in my tracks. The feelings of guilt spread when I also realize I should finish my assignment for Personality Assessment. Grudingly, I pull out the assignment and start looking over it, but first I throw on a FRIENDS episode as background noise (and end up mostly watching that).

I hope you all enjoyed that brief journey through the chaos that is my thoughts. This self reflection may shed some light on why I'm such a fan of the t shirt that has the following saying on it, 'I don't know why people say I have a short attention span - Oh look! A chicken!'

I always loved this shirt, but didn't think it made a lot of sense. Obviously this person can pay attention, they are just interested in multiple things: talking about their attention span and chickens. Chickens deserve attention, too. But apparently thats not really the point...

It is now August 2009, I am and attempting to finish this half-written post I just found (in February). I hope my above self-disclosure made my point, focus is a huge problem for me. I tend to want to do everything, RIGHT NOW, and multitasking often seems like a good way to do that. As it turns out... not so much. I find myself getting thoroughly frustrated with how easily I get distracted which furthers the counterproductivity of it all. When I actually focus on one thing at a time, I'm actually quite amazed. I am efficient! It shed some light on why I probably procrastinate so much? Because it forces me to focus.

I'm happy to report that months later, I've actually gotten a lot better at this. Articles like the Runners World one I read months ago (now online), have helped me realize that I just gotta decide which things that are a priority and focus on one thing at a time. I've stopped most multitasking and it really has done wonders for me. I now power through to-do lists like tornadoes of arms and teeth. I still have a million ideas and there still is no possible way I can do them all. But with my new focusing techniques, I get a heckuva lot further.

Time Travel and Life Changing Advice

Hola, non-existent readers. It's been about a million years since I've posted on here so I'm pretty sure the only people who might end up reading this are random google searchers looking for the new release of the movie based on the book below, and myself, of course (gotta be your own biggest fan). But its all good. Hey, at least I'm writing something so that years later I can come back and read my own thoughts about time travel. Sweet.

I just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. My friend told me she cried almost the entire last 100 pages. Based on this, others told me I would surely cry throughout the entire thing, due to my highly emotional nature. I agreed that this prediction was likely and took no bets against it, yet I only shed a few tears on one page, thank you very much. Who's overly emotional now?

Anyway, I'm not here to spoil the book. I will rate it as a entertaining and engaging, yet long read that was worth my time for sure, but was far from being my favorite book. There were parts that didn't really ring true to me (no, not the time traveling parts, parts that really could be true, but I didn't like how they were thrown in). However, I can't go in more detail without having to put forth a spoiler alert. Besides, I would rather discuss a very obvious aspect of the book... Time travel (duh).

For one reason or another (insomnia, most likely), I finished the book and decided to crack open some of my old journals. In addition to the very sporadic documentation of my life in this blog, I also write about more private matters in various journals, and 5 of them happen to live here with me in Philly (6 if you count my Travel Journal). I can't really focus very well (a topic for another day if I ever get around to it) so my journals tend to jump around a lot. You might need to go to the black one with pink roses on it for a mid-college assessment of how school and grades and classes are going, yet to my green journal, which tends to have more quotes and random writings in it for a hand copied version of a quote I really enjoyed just a week later. Lets just say if you wanted to actually track my thoughts and emotions over time in a semi-coherent way (whether thats even possible is up for debate) you would have to go on quite a scavenger hunt through my various writings.

Whatever the reason my random mind had for going through and reading older thoughts, it got me thinking about what time travel would really mean. As I read through a journal entry from April 27, 2004 (at 3:14am, noting the consistency in my insomnia, as I write this at 1:43am), writing fervently about grades and the possibility of getting my second 4.0 for the spring semester, I wondered to myself. What would I tell myself if I really could travel back in time and speak to this younger me? Would I give myself advice (chill the **ck out)? Would I inform myself of which people are worth my time and which I should drop like a hot plate? And what if I could visit myself in the future and find out where life will take me, as Henry DeTamble of the book could? Would I even want to?

The characters in the book shed some light onto answers such as this. Especially for future travel. Henry tried to avoid giving away details of the future to his wife and others in his life unless absolutely necessary. But sometimes, these details provided reassurance (e.g., reassurance that their unrelenting efforts to achieve certain goals were finally realized and not in vain) and helped them avoid unnecessary worry for the future. However, other times, it reduced the excitement or increased feelings of helplessness for the inevitable.

As for giving yourself advice, that is a question that important to ask regardless of its impossibility. Surely, I would love to give my adolescent self some hard hitting advice, something along the lines of 'live it up while you have few responsibilities, but stay away from assholes named XXXXX.' But would I really have listened? And how would that change who I am today? Could I still be as empathic for others who made dumb mistakes like or similar to mine? Would I still be in the field I am in? I'm not sure... but I kind of doubt it.

A wise man once told me he believes that we each bring into our lives things we somehow want and need at that time. This doesn't sit well with everyone, yet there still seems to be some underlying truth to it. Everything has some type of purpose, right? So who am I, or any other fictionally time traveling being, to mess with that purpose? I guess I'll have to settle with giving my present-self advice based on my past mistakes just like all the other non-time traveling folk. I guess its been working pretty decently so far, and I expect I will only get better at it as time goes on.