The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down

"This is a beautiful book – it’s pretty inside as well, with lovely illustrations. I saw it in the bookshop, and I hadn’t heard about it, even though it’s sold over three million copies. It’s written by a monk, and he has so much experience. It’s a really gentle book, and it brings together a lot of ideas, including acceptance— accepting the reality of life—and also spiritual advice on everything from setbacks to love and relationships. This book inspired me to come up with the idea of the spotlight of attention: that what we’re focusing on becomes our reality of life. That led me to see what is going on when we’re overthinking… If our mind is a stage with a spotlight, then when you’re overthinking, the spotlight’s got stuck on one small detail of your life, and it casts the rest of your life into darkness. With the people I work with, they can’t see things differently at the time. If it were as simple as saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s okay,’ nobody would overthink. It’s so real, and it’s so difficult to access another view at that point – again, because when we’re in a negative mood, we narrow our focus of attention (this part isn’t in this book, it’s in my book). You’re on a different track in your brain, so you don’t have access to the same thoughts, memories and feelings. In fact, your brain matches you up with all the other times you felt that bad, and all the other times things weren’t going well. When you can broaden that spotlight of attention and boost your mood, then you’re back on the good tracks again, with the good memories that match – so it’s a positive knock-on effect. For his analogy, Sunim talks beautifully about the night sky and how you see it. It’s right at the beginning of the book. It reminded me what’s so difficult when you’re overthinking: what you see at that moment feels like the whole truth of your life, and your brain only pays attention to stuff that fits, and it discards anything else – as though all of that is in darkness. Yes, I think so. Mark Williams recommends this book too, so he’s obviously signed up to it as well. There’s less to sign up to in this book—it’s a gentle way in to opening up your ways of thinking. Often when we’re thinking about life, we’re so on autopilot that we don’t stop to look up and think about things differently. That’s what’s nice about this book. It prompts you to do that in a gentle way, but in a way that’s also helpful and clever. I think it’s another great one for acceptance. Burkeman talks so cleverly about accepting our limitations, focusing on what matters, letting go of productivity and efficiency, not living in the future, and defining our limits. I like his idea that you can’t do everything, so you need to choose. That busyness—whether it’s a busy mind or a busy life—takes you away from actually being in life, and doing the things that matter to you. So often, people’s self-worth is tied to their productivity. He breaks down that idea really nicely. Overthinking comes into that as well – the idea that you should be doing more or that you’re not doing enough, you’re not making the most of things, you’re not reaching your potential. He cleverly challenges those ideas."