Everything equals nothing

I secretly love my phone’s camera.  I say secretly because I could never admit to Heather, my wife, that I like anything about this phone.  I have always staunchly been on the other side of the Android vs. Apple debate and have teased her for years for not agreeing with me.  However, in my last upgrade I ended up on her side of the fence.  So, I have been bemoaning this phone since I got it, but I do really enjoy the camera.  Please, don’t tell her I said so.

a focus on everything becomes a focus on nothing.

One of my favorite features of the camera is its ability to focus on the subject, while blurring the background, making a surprisingly good photographer out of even someone as visually unartistic as I am.  Of course, a real photographer can do much better with their camera equipment.

I have seen Heather do amazing things with her Canon.  Carefully choosing the correct lens, lighting, and setting, the perfect picture is created with just the right focus so that the subject of the picture is crystal clear.  You know what is the photographer is wanting you to see.  One thing I have noticed about pictures is that a focus on everything becomes a focus on nothing.  If the photographer wants us to understand their priority, some other things are going to become a little blurry.

real focus requires a focal point.

It’s that way in life as well.  In fact, while you read these words, the objects in your peripheral vision are able to be seen, but they are blurry.  And, if you focus on something else, these words will become blurry.  Simply put, real focus requires a focal point.  In order for your eye, or the camera, to truly focus, other things will lose priority.

It’s like that in life as well.  You may start your year with a list of “things” or “tasks” that you are going to get done.  Yet in just a few days you find yourself not really accomplishing anything and certainly not excelling in the ones that mattered most.

Why?  Because, a focus on everything is a focus on nothing.  Science tells us that you can only really pay attention to three things at any given moment.  Yet, every morning you get up with thirty things that just have to be done.

Truth be told you can only change one thing at a time.  However, here is the beautiful thing.  You already know what that one thing is…

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, –Hebrews 12:1 (KJV 1900)

Notice what the writer says.  If we are going to run this race, we must lay aside every weight and the sin that easily “besets” (ensnares, entangles) us.  It almost seems as if the verse is saying that you and I might have a particular sin that seems to easily trip us up.  In fact if you look at your life, you will recognize this is the case.  You do not find yourself falling for 100 different things.  No, we get tripped up by same few things… again and again.

Success will come through making one change and sticking with it, until it becomes you.

We can blame it on genetics, nature, nurture or whatever else we may think contributes, but whatever the cause, the results are the same.  There is really only one or two things that keep messing you up, and you know exactly what they are!

Sin is “missing the mark.”  So whether it be a sin against God or a sin against your goals, what is it that keeps making you miss the mark?  I promise you, its not a thousand things.  It’s one or two.  Let’s focus on them.

You can only fix one thing at a time. So what is it going to be?  Success in taking ownership of time this year will not come through making ten changes.  Success will come through making one change and sticking with it, until it becomes you.

Then and only then can you change the next thing.