Focus, distraction, discouragement, vision and hope

The world is a busy place, even if you live here in Southeastern Kentucky. Sometimes we have the tendency to think that the rest of the world is busy busy while things here never change, the world has already passed us by and we are in slow mode and nearly void of the rest of the world’s problems because of such. If that’s your thinking, I would suggest for your consideration that there is a difference between feelings and reality. Feelings have the easiest track into our lives to misdirect us, lead us down emotional stair cases and to put such weight on our shoulders that we feel completely stuck in the mud, with no hope of getting out. Along the by-ways and highways of life we each will face moments in our travels that we overtake us or that we will overcome. My personal encouragement, “Don’t be distracted and don’t get discouraged. Focus eliminates distraction and vision creates hope”. Focus is that which causes us to fix our eyes and energies toward our goals or need to discover solutions. Focus is that which requires us to create an action plan of steps. Focus is a process of eliminating distractions from the answer. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in life is focusing on all the reason why I wasn’t able to accomplish my task. Maybe your like me and you could spend days pointing out to all our sympathizers the issues that others created, the problems that others should have dealt with on their own time but no, their issues become ours and they are to blame for our lack of achievement. I feel better already having written that and gotten the truth out there…..of course that’s the way we feel…..and all that has created the perfect distraction that is almost a guaranteed remedy for failure in reality. Focus is the answer for discouragement. Once we have allowed our feelings to take over our emotional well being, we have lost whatever ground we had hopes of achieving. There is no more of defeated state of being that realizing all we had worked for seems to have been lost in a single moment because of our action or lack there of. Discouragement is that which creeps up on you. If discouragement had the characteristic of jumping out at you and announcing itself we would all no doubt t punch discouragement right in the throat, or at least that would be my first thought. However discouragement doesn’t work that way. Ot happens little by little and it arrives at your doorstep without the slightest observation that it was even walking up your sidewalk. When we take hold of our reality and align it with focus it is amazing what happens to distractions and discouragements. We will always have distractions in life. We will always have things that will interest us and can easily get our attention creating a perfect distraction from the things at hand and the foundation we are attempting to build and build upon. Don’t be distracted, remain focused. Focus will lead to success, but the process is not an overnight experience. Focus creates hope because with each step of success we are learning along the way we can overcome issues instead of being overtaken by them. We learn that because of that type of success we discover vision because we are not drowning in hopelessness. Vision is a product of focus by which discouragement is eliminated and replaced with hope. If we are removing one thing from our lives, life has a requirement that it be replaced with something else. Our choice regarding what we are removing and replacing is all on us individually. Our attitude in life has influences that impact our way of thinking. Situations and various circumstances we have encountered also have an impacts on our attitude. These truths however do not eliminate our personal responsibility for that which we can control. Focus, distraction, discouragement, vision, and hope. These five elements are generally in close proximity to each other at all times. The amount of attention and focus we give to these different characteristic elements play a huge role in our life’s journey. Will you be distracted at times in life, yes. Will you become discouraged as you live, go and do, absolutely. Should we leave these two D’s by themselves? No! Focus is the answers as it lays out a welcome mat in our lives, inviting vision and hope to come on in. Until then