Our focus determines our future

On an outdoor bicycle ride, I am constantly surveying my surroundings, in particular the road or more likely, the shoulder alongside the highway in front of me. Cyclists are regularly looking for obstacles or anything that might prove dangerous or cause an accident.

After all, if we are going 15 mph, we cover the 20 feet in front of us in less than 10 seconds so decisions need to be made constantly and fairly swiftly.

As I look at the ground quickly being covered by the bicycle, there is almost always something out of the ordinary in the path at some point. It may be roadkill, with or without all the body parts depending how long it has been there. It could be a brand new baseball cap that flew off a passing motorcyclist just returning from Sturgis, S.D., the latest treasure on the roadside. It could be a screwdriver, a situation that has increased the tool supply at home multiple times over.

But the most common items found in the middle of the shoulder are small rocks kicked up by passing vehicles. For bicyclists, even a small rock can prove hazardous as one of two things may happen. The bike tire hits the rock, sending the bicycle careening one direction or the other, forcing the rider to lose control and possibly wrecking. Alternately, the tire hits the rock and through a force of physics that I don’t understand, the rock jettisons from the ground, usually hitting the biking partner riding close by.

You might be thinking, “so just avoid the rock.” Trust me, I say the same thing to myself. Ironically, it isn’t that simple to tell yourself to simply focus.

There might not be anything on either side of that rock for three feet, easily allowing room to weave around the obstacle, but my skinny little bike tire is going straight toward that rock.

Why? Because my focus is on the rock. And where I focus is where I go. Most likely I am going to hit the rock because my attention is like a laser pointer to the rock.

But there is a third alternative: looking away from the rock, focusing on the smooth road in front of me.

At some point, I have to take my attention away from the rock, which provides instability and possible danger, and refocus on something more productive like staying upright and moving forward and making progress.

So why so much attention on a little rock?

We all have little rocks in our lives, which consume our time, which can steer your attention from something productive to something pointless, which can insert uncertainty and unreliability.

In the end, where we focus is what we devote attention and time to. The little rock is what we will hit … literally but usually figuratively.

As the days pass by, consider what your focus lands? Is it staring at your phone and the endless scrolling? Is it playing video games for hours on end? Is it binge watching a 10-season television show in two days?

None of these are bad in themselves and it is good to let your brain just wander sometimes but consider what you could be doing with that same time to learn a new language at least enough to find a restroom in a foreign country, read a book that has been sitting on your shelf for years, or write a letter to a friend in the retirement home.

The focus can also steer you in the wrong direction. If I keep my focus on the rock, there is the possibility that I won’t accomplish what I want to do on my bike ride, that is making it safely to the end of the ride or making it to The Perk in Culbertson for my morning breakfast burrito mid-ride.

Some of the decisions we make on where to set our focus have longer-reaching, deeper affects on us and our community.

Is it watching and reading the news, a cycle that can’t and won’t ever end of which you have little, if any, control? Is it having conversations that focus on only the negative things happening in your community, instead of celebrating all the good things taking place? Is it sharing social media posts which foster division rather than how to come together to make our communities better for everyone?

Every day, we decide where to set our focus. Will it be on something that derails your plans or sends you veering off into a direction that is not best for you or your community? Or will it be on something positive that helps you reach your goal and makes the community a better place for yourself, your family and your friends? Will your focus being on the small, obstructive rock in the road or will it be on the smooth, helpful road that you will follow? Ultimately, we each get to decide where our focus will be and how that focus will shape our community.