Fighting for our attention.

Hollywood spends millions on a minute advert for a new movie. The best are on it, best editors, best musicians, best actors, the best cut of the film. They are trying to lure you in, draw you in to go and see the film. They are fighting for your attention, they spend millions because they know that your time is precious, they know that everything else in life is fighting for your attention. Massive billboards of adverts all around you, social media adverts, political campaigns that are fighting all for your attention. Anywhere you look, anyplace you go; something is fighting for your attention or someone is fighting for your attention. It is precious.  Why is it that we are so overwhelmed with information from all angles that it takes Prince Harry being a soldier for us to remember that soldiers are fighting for our freedom? Why does Angelina Jolie have to be a good will UN ambassador just to draw attention to the much needed issues in third worlds? 

Is it because we're afraid to care, there is too much going on around us to care or that we just don't care? 

I'm coming to the belief more and more, that its not necessarily that people don't actually care about an issue, its just they don't have time to care. A close family member of mine knows nothing of what is happening in the political realm, knows nothing about world affairs because they are too busy trying to make life happen for the people around them. Trying to care about everything in their circle that they don't have the attention span to engage with massive world problems. Our lives are so cluttered with our worlds that we can't sometimes see the wood for the tree's. 

Lets gain some perspective. 

We've got too much in our lives that doesn't matter. For the important things to become more into the picture we need to take the meaningless things out, I don't need to secify, you know what is meaningless in your life. As a very wise man once said 'if its not growing fruit, cut it off and grow something new'. Those words are by Jesus (Matthew 5:30). This verse gets miss interpreted that Jesus wants you to tear out your eye if it causes you to sin. However, Jesus is speaking in parable and analogy and is saying that if something is not producing anything good in your life, or producing life instead producing anything bad (darkness, Sickness, grief etc) get rid of it and cut it off! 

 Spend time on things that our worth our time. Family, friends. People. Loving people, letting the love we have for people grab our attention. Remembering in the messiness of our lives to spend quality time with a friend over dinner, to send a quick text to say 'how are you?', to think about how we can make a friend smile and laugh.