Paying attention to life

“Attention! Attention must be paid!” shouts Willie Loman in the superb American classic play, Death of a Salesman. Willie is begging that someone pay attention to him and his needs. There are few things in life more important than “paying attention.” According to Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton in their book, The Meaning of Things, “ paying attention is how we use our psychic energy, and how we use our psychic energy determines the kind of self we are cultivating, the kind of person we are learning to be.”

By paying attention, we muster up all our resources of intelligence, feeling, and moral sensitivity. By paying attention we are focusing. However, often we fall prey to distractions which destroy our act of paying attention. And therein lies most of the dilemmas we face in our daily life that cause us great grief. Many of us try to escape into alcohol, drug abuse, compulsive promiscuity, and, yes, even channel- flipping TV watching. Sadly, we discover later that these distractions do not really help. They only leave us mildly, or sometimes, severely depressed.

“Attention” is one of the key basic functions in many religions. For example, one cannot pray unless he pays attention to the words and focuses his thoughts on God. Try to practice Zen Buddhism without paying attention. Some forms of attention are seen when we read a book, repair our car, talk to someone we love, or even cook the family meal.

To better understand “attention” or “attending” and its influence in our daily life, we must realize that it is part of the social institutions that we live in. We do not attempt self-control and self-discipline in isolation, but in the institutions we live in. And it is important to pay attention to these institutions or they will fail us in our needs. After all institutions are man-made and require attention also.

For many of us the family is “ a haven in a heartless world.” But to create a perfect haven, or a loving family, we must pay “ attention.” Despite romantic fantasies, families require a great deal of attention to function successfully. Attending to each other, expressing our deepest concerns and aspirations, and listening to those of the other person is fundamental in a good marriage and crucial to the satisfaction it provides.

While attention is important between marriage partners, it is fundamental for children. Case studies reveal that infants who do not get attention, in the case of psychic interaction and love with another human being, simply cannot survive, even if they are fed and clothed.

Psychologist Csikszentmihalyi and sociologist Rochberg-Halton found that children in families where high levels of attention were given to each member of the family were significantly different from children whose parents neglected and were inattentive and did not relate well to each other.

They found that: “ Children of warm homes are more sympathetic, helpful, caring, and supporting. The next difference is Affiliation: the relevant traits here are loyal, warm, friendly, sociable, cooperative. Warm homes also breed children who are less denying, defensive, and unsure of their worth.” In short, attentive homes breed attentive children.

The study, however, revealed a weak point in that it found that most of the attention is being showered upon the family basically from one of the parents. This weakness can be readily adjusted when both father and mother assume equal responsibility for creating a perfect haven. We must not turn over this all important function to one partner or even worse to a housekeeper. This degree of inequality in the household is a major threat to the stability of the family. (To be continued)