You probably wouldn’t hand your wallet to a stranger and say…

“Take whatever you want.”

But that’s more or less what we do with our attention all day.

Notifications, outrage, minor annoyances, half-interesting conversations, doom scrolling.

Each of these things (and many more!) charge a small fee. Nothing dramatic. Just a quiet drain. And then… attention bankruptcy.

Seneca’s point isn’t that time is short. It’s that we’re careless with it.

Attention is the real currency. Whatever we give it to is what our life slowly becomes.

Most days don’t go badly, they just get spent poorly.

We don’t need to guard our attention perfectly (that’s fairly impractical), but we should endeavour to notice more often when we’re giving it away frivolously.

So, pay closer attention to your attention today. Let me know how it goes.

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