Read Online The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life by Thomas M. Sterner - Free Book Online

functioning in a process-oriented, present minded state, we can observe this state quite easily in others. One of the best examples of this is to watch someone play a computer video game. You will see perfect practice in action. Video games offer a natural environment for pulling us into a state of focused present-moment awareness.In a video game, the scoreis essentially the end result or product that the player is working for, but the game itself is where the fun is. The process of playing the game takes all your attention. If you take more than a second to glance at the score, it can make or break your attempt to beat the computer at the game. If you watch people playing a computer game, you will observe how totally focused they are on what they are doing in that moment. Even though the best score possible is the ultimate goal, the participants are only superficially aware of it. The process of playing the game requires all their attention. If you talk to people playing a computer game, they may not even answer you because they are so absorbed in the process of the game. Watching a movie can have the same effect on us if we find it particularly interesting. We say it “captivates” us because it captures our attention.
    Most of us find that we are very good at practicing properly during recreational activities. We perform these activities with all our attention in the present and on what we are doing. What is the difference, then, between work activities and recreational activities? Why do we find it so much easier to focus on something we consider play than on something we consider work? If we can find answers to these questions, they could help us advance our efforts toward operating in a present-minded state all the time.
    I have found that the only difference between the two sorts of activities is that we prejudge them. We make a conscious decision that if we enjoy an activity, it is not work. So we must temporarily suspend our definition of work as referring to our daily vocation. Work , in this discussion, refers to any activity we don’t feel like doing, and though it could certainly include our job duties, or at least parts of them, it could also include any activity that we think is “undesirable.”
    We know that this prejudgment of whether an activity is work or play is not universal, because one person’s hobby is another person’s drudgery. Some people love to garden; others don’t even want to cut the grass. I watched a program one evening called The Joy of akes . To me, that’s a self-contradictory title, but to the show’s host, it made perfect sense.
    The knowledge that we prejudge our activities and then place them into one of the two categories is very powerful. It demonstrates to us that nothing is really work or play. We make an activity into work or play by our judgments. The next time you find yourself doing something that you really don’t feel like doing, stop for a moment and ask yourself why. What is it about the activity that makes you feel that way? You will find that many times you really can’t put your finger on why you don’t want to do something. You will end up saying, “I just don’t feel like doing this right now.” This implies that what you feel like doing is something else that you have defined as “not work.” You are not in the present but instead are in the future, anticipating another activity.
    But why, during a subconscious judgment process, do we define one activity as work and another as “not work”? I feel that a large part of what makes us define somethingas work is that the activityrequires a lot of decision making, which can be very stressful and fatiguing. This is especially true when the decisions that you are making are very subtle and you are not even aware that you are making them.
    Once, when I was preparing a concert piano for an orchestra and soloist, I found myself going through the experience of “I just don’t feel like doing this.” As I