The Cost of “Paying Attention”

I was in a line the other day waiting to pay for something, when I overheard a wife begrudgingly nudge her husband with her elbow saying to him, “You’re next, pay attention.” He glanced at her, and with a wry smile replied, “Sweetheart, I am too poor to pay attention.”

That got me to thinking; if we were to place a concrete value on paying attention, just what would that value be? Thus far, it has always been an expression used as a means to invoke purpose into our daily lives, but really, just what is the cost of paying attention?  If you are like me, you realize that paying attention is an attendant that never sleeps. It always awaits right around the next corner for you to cease from paying attention so that it may insert some form of unexpected delays, snafu’s, or mishaps into our lives. Paying attention means that your focus is now on the minutes, sometimes the very seconds as they sweep in some sort of never-ending race across the face of your watches and clocks, rather than merely the hours of the day. Paying attention forces you to take in every facet of your surroundings, examining them for meaning and purpose.  Paying attention does not let you lose sight of all that you hope to accomplish, hope to see, or hope to do.

When it comes to the lives of others, paying attention allows you to clearly communicate how much those others mean to you, and at the same time monitor their sincerity and interests toward you.  Paying attention allows you to accomplish with confidence, simple random acts of kindness that in turn help people appreciate your existence in their lives. 

Consider this; if you are a parent, paying attention means that you are emblazing in your mind every single “da-da” every single smile, every single tear, and every single time your children wrap their tiny arms around your neck.  If you are a parent, paying attention means that you, not “oops” reigns in your household and that you are able to easily ensure the well-being of those children because of it. Paying attention means that you care to have distinct and bitter-sweet memories of their constant growth, as they leave the footie-pajamas for clothes that must be deemed as “cool” by their peers.  Paying attention means that you can clearly recall the times you were up all night, changing diapers, bed-sheets, clothes, and exchanging them for memories that you now find yourself laughing about.  Paying attention in a child’s life means that you are grateful for the past, joyful in the present, and excited for the future of what your child is to be. 

If you are a spouse, paying attention means that as you see Father-Time slowly marking his days by the lines on your face, you can still appreciate all the times of love, struggle, victory, defeat, and a greater sense of purpose and companionship you have spent with your loved one. Paying attention means that you can sense before it is spoken when your loved one is ill, frustrated, sad, joyful, excited or withdrawn.  Paying attention means that even in parting, your memory will serve as a movie screen forever displaying your own life’s “greatest moments”

If you are a family member, paying attention is a simple tool to remember all the times both good and bad, and has served as a platform much like a launching pad that has been the watchful teacher to show you the way to go, or the way to defer from going down the same path.  Paying attention allows you to say with strong declaration, “I will go this way!”

So just what is the “cost” of paying attention? The cost is dearly for some; for those who wish to live a life bursting with color, excitement, vigor, and splendor. Paying attention allows you to make most of the many mile markers that all of us encounter, and impress upon us the highest form of intention. 

To those whose days are but a foggy haze, the time to wake is now and allow the bright rays of “paying attention” to penetrate your world and illuminate your future.