Maintain your focus

Focused

I reckon I’m about as focused AND as ‘Out Of Focus’ as a person can be.

I spend much of my spare time these days attempting to perfect and refine my images.

As a budding amateur photographer, the learning curve has been steep yet exhilarating,  and my drive to improve and understand the discipline continues to intensify.

-It has however been coupled with disappointment.

My ‘focus’ you could say, is absolute. That’s not unusual for me of course. To pour all my attentions into something new and challenging with an all or nothing type attitude.

The mental energy I invest into something I enjoy can be enormous, and often I head down the despondency road-to my detriment- or is it?

We all know what happens when we try and pile too many rocks on top of each other. The masterpiece of a rock tower gets taller, and taller, and taller and it reaches for the stars in a beautiful newly created formation of ART…and then it falls with an almighty earth shattering bang-BOOM-all is now dust.

-This is the story of my life.

I have recognised in me, that in times of intense focus, I have a tendency to pile up the rocks like there’s no tomorrow, creating not a masterpiece, but a vulnerable, unbalanced structure, which could topple over with the tiny little push of a pinky finger.

This somewhat ‘out of focus’ short-sighted behavioural pattern has ironically been my greatest teacher.

“Those stupid rocks” I would say as I stared at them strewn on the ground resenting my efforts. Or I would run away and hide never wanting to face them again.  Or I would swear to myself that not a single rock would ever again be piled. And then what? Nothing, that’s what. It’s the end. The end of something I loved. Because of why? Because of my own inability to accept one thing-that they WILL fall down.

-My focus became very much out-of-focus when I failed to achieve success in an instant.

Decades of trips and falls has blessed me with a bit of an I don’t really care what happens now attitude, and as a result I have started to throw myself in with no regrets, and accidentally stumbled upon the answer-of course this doesn’t always happen!

If you love something, but your efforts seem to be futile- maintain your focus.

Do it with NO less enthusiasm. Do it with equal intent to extend your limits, do it with your whole self, do it blindly with no ears for the knockers, and do it with the knowledge that the rocks are going to fall down. They WILL. They will and they always have. But what is consistent-what I always forget, is that in order to achieve something, we need to accept a bit of imbalance, a fair bit of disappointment, a bit of pain, many, many, steps backward, and we need to take comfort in the re-building.

Maintain the focus, re-build the rocks one at a time, and you will gain knowledge, and power, and strength, and the ability to learn how to balance, and eventually success. Be patient-and Do Not be Afraid to fail.