In the book Thinking Fast and Slow, author and psychologist Daniel Gilbert tells us that we typically take about 300 milliseconds to accomplish a thought. He also says that we are much more likely to think about something in the first 1000 milliseconds after it occurs. This means that we should be thinking about something about the time that the thought has occurred. If we did this we would be more self-aware.
This is just another way of saying that we should be taking slow, deliberate steps to move on to the next thought. In the book the author writes that if we take slow, deliberate, deliberate steps to move on to the next thought, then we have completed a thought and should be more mindful of it. There’s some evidence to support this idea that it’s easier to pay attention to something if we’re already thinking about it.
The problem is we don’t realize that we’re thinking about something until we’ve already done it. People often say to me, ‘well you really should be paying attention.’ They make the statement with the idea that as long as I’m not paying attention to my thoughts, then that means that my thoughts aren’t important. But if we’re paying attention to our thoughts, they’re important, and they are.
So we think that we arent paying attention to our thoughts, but we are. Not because we are having thoughts, but because we are paying attention to our thoughts. Not because we can’t, but because we don’t. And not because we cant, but because we shouldn’t.
This is a technique (in my experience) where you make the mistake of being “not paying attention to your thoughts”. This is the same mistake that you make when you’re reading a book. You read it, you think about it, you read again, and you think about it. Just like that it becomes a thought that you cannot control.
I’m not saying leave your books laying on the table and not reading them again. These are two different things, but just as important. I can read a book and not pay attention to it. I can have a thought and not pay attention to it. The difference is that when I read a book, I don’t just think about the story, I think about the way the characters think and the way the story is told.
I think it’s the same for reading a book or writing a blog, or even the internet. I can think of the way I want to experience a piece of writing, and just as I think about the story and the characters, I want to experience it.
That’s why I don’t read articles, I don’t read blogs, I don’t read books, I don’t read websites, I don’t read magazines, I do not read books I just read a book. I just read a book and it’s the book that I have chosen to read.
When I read a book or blog I do not want to read a book. I may like it, maybe I love it, but I do not want to read it. I just want to read a book and get back to me.
The same principle applies to reading. If I have a book I want to read, I will read it. I may like the story I read, but I do not want to read it. The same goes for reading a blog. I may like the blog I read, but I do not want to read it.