Better Living through Effort

In 1993 I was diagnosed with severe ADHD. While my family elected to put me on prescription drugs for a while they were largely a stop gap while we figured out other ways to cope. Exercise is an obvious solution, and was employed liberally. But the most important thing my parents helped me cultivate by way of dealing with the disorder was a spirit of mindfulness.

This is not to say that I consider myself some sort of focused monk; that mindfulness is a constant challenge, and has only become moreso as the world has offered greater means of distracting me. Perhaps as a response to this I find that I seek out a more deliberate way of doing things. As an example, Heather and I don’t use drip coffee; I make French Press, every morning. I like the slow, deliberate process, and find that it helps me start my morning the right way. There’s also the fact that it tastes better, but interestingly it turns out that may be because of the effort and deliberateness of the task.

I’m trying to find other ways to bring in this sort of methodical, deliberate, hard way of doing things. I’ve felt more scatterbrained in the last year, and as a counterbalance to that I need to ramp up my focus. And it turns out, there’s a decent chance that focusing on process and the doing of things may do more than help my scatterbrained issues—it may make me happier too.

I think this can be considered the beginning of more work for me in the coming year. I invite you to join me.