The Sunday News
Itai Chipunza
Years ago we spoke about things you give your attention to and how they ultimately respond to you.
I remember saying that everything around you is driven by the attention you give to it.
Even prices of commodities on the market are generally largely determined by the attention you give to them.
The importance of things is determined by how much the public gives attention to them.
Sometimes too much attention pushes the thing to a level where an average citizen cannot afford it, on the other hand when we completely ignore something and only a handful of people are concerned about it, things may quickly get out of hand as large corporations exploit people because no one else cares what happens.
An average human being in our time freely gives their attention to things without thinking.
That is very wrong. Attention gives value to things. So attention is the value itself.
Let me illustrate it the way Jesus would. For a very long time people have sought after diamonds and gold.
This has given gold and diamonds some of the most consistent high price for centuries. This is simply because of the attention we give to gold and diamonds.
Everyone is looking for gold. So those that have it will only part with it at a high cost.
This gives it a very consistent high price. Imagine a situation where we all begin to ignore gold.
We instead take all the attention we give it and channel it to a different stone, say marble. The price of gold would plunge.
And if this is maintained for a length of time soon gold will become useless and we can easily pick gold bricks on the streets while marble will become extremely rare and its prices hit the roof.
So in such cases one would need a sixth sense in order to tell the right direction to proceed.
On the other hand, lets say the companies that produce gold are allowed free pricing with no one monitoring.
This would then cause them to exploit the few buyers that are in the market willing to buy gold by demanding insanely high prices for it.
This principle applies across the board for all things around us. To teach about the power of attention, one can only really use past experience and past events.
Back in 2008 when I had completed my Ordinary Level in my country of birth, Zimbabwe, I applied for a place to study Advanced Level at a school in an area called Shurugwi.
A lot of the students at that school were from cities around the country thus the school provided boarding facilities.
A few months into my stay there I developed an attraction towards a girl from Harare.
I was not a born again Christian at the time so my actions were based purely on physical attraction and nothing else.
I had no guidance as to how to proceed in such a scenario. Well, except for the advice of my fellow drunkard friends.
Fortunately for me, she showed signs of interest in me as well. I got a lot of attention from her.
We couldn’t all have cellphones so I got sweet letters, nice cooked food and she even wrote school notes for me sometimes. In school, that is classified as love.
We spent a lot of time together but at this point I hardly ever expressed my interest in words.
She kept on pushing me to say it but I never did. So eventually she shifted her focus from me to another guy that came from Botswana.
This drove me crazy, I began to chase after her.
I did all that I could to get her attention back. I even proposed to become in an “official” relationship as she had previously wanted.
My failed attempts did not drive me away but only increased my desire for her.
The interpretation for this is simple. We as humans tend to waste what we have in abundance, we tend not to show appreciation for things while we have them.
However, once you master the art of selectively giving and depriving things, jobs and people your attention, you can freely determine how things affect you and how they relate to you.
So in some things, if you begin to shun it, it becomes more reachable to you.
Others need your immediate attention in order to obtain the best outcome.
This year, make sure you practice when to pounce on an opportunity and when to wait.
This is one aspect that differentiates businesspeople that make it and those that don’t.
Knowing what to give your attention to. Be blessed.
Facebook — Itai Chapunza
