Word of Wisdom: Attention
“Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who…are brought into closer connection with you.” Saint Augustine
There’s a reason we often use the verb pay when we speak of attention, as in the phrase “pay attention”.
It’s because attention is costly.
Advertisers obviously know this, as they are more eager every year to shell out staggering sums of money for the chance at getting consumers’ attention for just a few seconds.
In our relationships, we also make expensive demands of one another when it comes to attention. We expect much of it from others—parents, spouses, children, employees—while often being miserly when it comes to reciprocating the investment of our attention in them.
Why? Because it’s expensive. It represents a limited and hence valuable asset: energy, of the mental and emotional sort. Actively listening, empathizing, refraining from judgment, and speaking helpful words with humility all require significant outlays of our precious time and energy, and too often we’re doubtful we’ll see sufficient ROI to satisfy us.
But to pay the price of giving our attention to those closest to us in life is the very definition of love.
The English word attention comes to us from the Latin term attendere, which means “to stretch toward”. It shares the same root as the verb “to attend”. When we give someone our attention, when we truly attend to them with a focused, attentive mind, we are literally stretching ourself toward them, connecting with them mentally in a way that knits the hearts together. It is why we feel “close” to those who give us their attention—they have stretched themselves toward us.
Sadly, many of us have experienced the pain of not receiving someone’s attention, not feeling “close to” or “attended to” by someone whose attention we desired. The disappointment, the pain, of feeling not “stretched toward” by someone distracted by their phone, uninterested in our feelings, not tender to our desires…not present in the home. All of these experiences wound our heart, whether for a moment or for decades.
But we have a say in whether we repeat that cycle or redeem it by reversing it.
So how do we better attend to—i.e., “stretch toward”—others? Like success, 80% of it might be just showing up. Being physically present. At the dinner table, at bedtime, at lunch breaks, at rehearsals, at games.
I remember as a teenager seeing my grandmother, in ill health and with an oxygen mask, sitting in the backseat of a family member’s car parked behind home plate while I pitched from the mound during a baseball game we played in her hometown. Nothing was going to stop her from being there; she was going to attend that ballgame and, more importantly, attend to—stretch toward—her grandson’s heart.
Then, once we’re actually present physically, we can day-by-day be more present mentally. Here are some practical ways we can stretch toward those we lead and love:
Put the phone down.
Leave the phone down.
Look the person in the eyes while listening…not preparing what to say.
Actively listen by repeating what you understand them to be saying.
Affirm them, don’t advise them.
Speak tenderly.
Intentionally plan time to do all of that on a regular basis.
To be stretched toward, to be reached out to mentally, emotionally, by another, might just be what our hearts most desire in this life. And no matter how deep the wounds we carry from loved ones who have not stretched toward us, those wounds can be healed. Because we have a Father who, through the person of His Son, has reached toward us across a chasm we cannot fathom the cost of.
So that we can now live like sons. And stretch toward others like a father.
“Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.” Isaiah 32:3