I recently had to order new contacts. I have an amazing eye doctor and each year, she tries to get my contacts as close to perfect as possible. This year when I ordered them and they came, I had a hard time focusing in them, and seeing anything up close. Without readers, I couldn’t see anything right in front of my face. Seeing far off, that wasn’t so much a struggle, but I couldn’t see right in front of my face. Things had become blurry. Life is like this. Last night, I was on the struggle bus. I was tired, I’m trying to learn something new, I haven’t worked out like normal, my eating hasn’t been good, my routines have been totally knocked off course, I haven’t been praying and meditating or reading or even blogging. I was beginning to lose my focus and it’s thrown me off course. As I stood up from my computer to go to bed, I looked down and saw this pad of paper my friend gave me for my birthday. It simply said when life gets blurry, adjust your focus.
Where have you lost focus in your life? Websters defines focus as this: a center of activity, focus or attention; adjustment for distinct vision. For the past few years, I have been focused on my health, thus losing 30 pounds and making my health a priority. This year I have been focused on growth and helping others and being better, which caused me to spend time reading, meditating, blogging. This year I have focused more on my relationship with God and spending more time reading the Bible, and praying. But some changes in my life caused me to lose focus on all of those things. I haven’t been working out regularly, I haven’t been reading every day, praying, meditating, blogging like I committed to do. And, this has literally been in the past two weeks. That is how quickly something in your life can cause you to lose focus. Something in your day can cause you to lose focus on something important. It doesn’t take much time.
What happens when we lose focus on our health? We gain weight, we have zero physical activity, we eat poorly, our blood pressure goes up, our cholesterol is bad, we don’t sleep, we’re lethargic, and ultimately, we can have major health issues and be on meds the rest of our lives. Obviously some people have to be on meds and they can’t control that, not what I mean here.
What happens when we don’t focus on our finances and our spending? We get into debt, we buy things we don’t need to impress people that really don’t matter. We never have anything in life to show for our hard work. We literally work to pay bills and that’s it.
What happens when we don’t focus on our relationship with God? We don’t pray, we don’t help others, love others, and we lean on ourselves, which normally doesn’t work out very well for us. We have no peace, no joy, we struggle.
Where are you in your marriage? What if we get home from work every day and we spend hours on the phones with our friends, hours on our phones or computers on social media, watching videos, playing games, and we never take a minute to actually talk to our spouse. We make girls nights more of a priority than date nights. Your focus isn’t on your marriage and then eventually when the relationship fails, we don’t understand why.
What about our kids? We literally have about 18 years with them and that’s about it. Yes, we influence them as they’re older, but not like we do when they’re growing up. Are we more interested in ourselves and our needs instead of focusing on making sure they’re successful in school, have what they need and are just overall good human beings? Do we spend more time with our friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, or anything else that takes us away from our children? Do we actually teach them anything in life that will help them? As a parent, we do have a job and a responsibility to those kids!
What about your job, or your company? Where is your focus with that? If we lose focus in this area, we become bored, tired, lazy, we’re not good employees, we’re not good bosses. Do you want to succeed for yourself and those around you?
Where is our focus? Without focus, life gets blurry. We just flounder around without any direction, just barely getting by each day. I’ve been struggling with this lately too. My focus has not been on growth or helping others, or all the amazing things I have in my life to be grateful for and it’s effecting me. I am a person who has to have some direction. I don’t do well by flying by the seat of my pants. Maybe you do, but even then you have to have some focus on something.
What is right in front of our faces that we are not seeing? The Bible says without vision the people perish. If you don’t have a clear vision of what you want and where you’re going, you will never have it and you will never get there. Hopefully today, if you have lost focus in life, on your marriage, on your kids, on your health, on loving others and making a difference, I hope this wakes you up to adjust your focus. I hope this wakes me up. Life isn’t meant to be blurry! We are meant to open our eyes to this great big world of opportunities and to be our best!
With love for you all!
Shauna
Shauna's Sisters 