Focus - Andrew Reza

    Focus is the power that drives a person to grow. Focus is the restriction that allows someone to be free. Focus is the shovel that can move mountains. The ability to focus is highly undervalued. To direct your attention to a single thing, and forget about everything else, can lead to truly extraordinary results. The ability to forget time and space, and live only in the objective.

    With focus, grueling tasks be can done in a blink of an eye. When you focus truly on a single thing, deeper instincts can kick in and take over for you. Time flies when you're having fun, because time flies when you're focused on something. When playing tag on the playground, you have one goal: Don't get caught. You run and run, watching every movement, predicting every path. When it feels as if you made it to the five minute mark, the bell rings, marking the end of the 50 minute recess. 

    With focus, uncomfortable situations feel like home. At your cousin's birthday party, where kids are screaming and balloons are scratching, you feel perfectly at ease. Because you sit to the side at this party, drawing whatever comes to mind, the rest of the world crumbles away, leaving only you and what it is you want to do.

    With focus, minute details can be caught and made clear. When cooking food, noticing that the oven is set just barely too high can make the difference between an apple pie and an apple crisp.

    Of course, total focus has its drawbacks. When you isolate yourself from the world, it cannot communicate with you. When additional tasks are brought to you, they can easily slip away with everything else, as your focus directs itself at only the task at hand. When you're stroking the strings of the violin, the melody can wash away the words of your mother, asking you to do the dishes. When the dishes aren't done, the world agrees the responsibility lies with you alone. 

    But at the end of the day, when a task is given total focus, you can rest in the knowledge that it got your one hundred percent.