Would You Like Attention or to Be Attended to? Your Choice!

Would you rather have someone’s attention or have someone attend to you? I know which I would choose. If I’m in a pub, I would rather have the server bringing me a beer than watching me or even talking to me. Attention is nice, but being attended to is better. Attention is a noun; to attend is a verb, an action, a get-things-done word.

And for the really big things of life, for coming to terms with who you are and with what your purpose is — well, who can attend to those things for you? Right! You win! Your Heart is the correct answer. When it comes to the most foundational, most crucial needs of a human being, only Heart can attend to those needs with power, truth, and sincerity, no ego bullshit allowed.

Remember, though, please, that ego is our default human operating system (dhOS). Heart must be sought, heard, and heeded, if you choose that. If you are trying to be like the mass of people living lives of quiet, frustrated, sometimes defeated, sometimes angry desperation, then by all means, conform and stick with ego. It’s easier — at first, anyway. However, have you ever seen folks who appear to be really successful — great jobs, wealth, families — who are just miserable, who end up crashing and burning? It’s because they never heeded their heart. They took the ego way.

Now, I’m not even saying allowing ego to operate as life filter and guide is wrong. It’s not. I am simply saying if one wishes for deep soul satisfaction, which includes many things, then Heart is the way to go. Once again, though, I am not saying Ego won’t help a person accomplish and achieve at a high level, because the mind is still involved. Ego or Heart simply directs mind as to how to process life. People living Ego can be powerful and successful in many things, just not at the most basic need of knowing self, personal truth, and true life purpose, a fulfilling, significant, enduring one.

Why am I thinking about these things this evening? Yesterday, I spent three hours with a man who is in hospice care. He knows he is at this mortal life’s end, but death does not seem imminent. For the entire time, he rehearsed his life, sharing things that are important to him. He specifically stated that his reason for doing so was that we might learn, gain something from his life experience.

He was trying to convince us of the issues, but he also was truly reliving things, reflecting on things in a light that gave his life meaning. This is his peace, which is absolutely cool. I have known him my whole life, and I know he has always craved attention, really in his own way demanded it. As I sat there, I thought of how much it sounded like he was trying to convince himself of the validity of his life. I truly am glad, though: he seems to be at peace and reconciled to the end, and he certainly has interesting stories.

However, I wish to attend to the significant people and things in my life so that at the end I do not have to seek attention. I don’t really care for the present if I don’t have their attention, and I don’t demand it. When I live my Heart, then I know that at some point, even if it’s at the end of my life, I will have attention, because I have attended to friendships and relationships, not the least of which is the relationship with myself, my own heart. Usually, when anyone demands attention, they are doing little to attend to others, very little. I don’t want to play my life’s highlight reel for others to gain their attention at the end of life. If I attend to them — show up, apply my mind and myself towards them, look after them — then my heart’s contentment will be sufficient recompense for me.

I don’t believe I can ever fully convey the largeness of this idea, the eternal, infinite, immortal nature of Heart. If Heart looms so significantly, then think of the power that is ours and resides in and emanates from within each of us. When heart energy is chosen as the force carrying out the work of attending to anything, that thing will be significant, more significant, more infused with genuine power.

Attending to our hearts does not imply simple co-existence, no more than living in the same house with someone or working side by side with someone for years means attending to them and nurturing relationships. If someone is around you all the time and you barely speak, this is not attending to them. An adventurous, fulfilled, significant, dynamic, joy-producing life depends on attending to our hearts.

Please don’t depend on the empty whimsical façade of Ego, because it can look good for a whole lifetime, but it can result in emptiness at the end. Again, this is not wrong, but most people don’t desire emptiness to be their final thoughts, don’t want to be garnering and seeking attention in order to give some support to the façade that has been constructed to gain such attention.

Most of us have heard the whispers of our hearts; we know there is a connection with other souls, the whole Universe, and the Spirit of all life available to us. And when folks go through life always feeling there’s just something they are missing, something more to be experienced, some greater reason to live, they are not attending to Heart.

​Show up. Apply yourself to Heart. No neglect allowed. Attend your heart. Hear it. Heed it. Live it. Enjoy the fruit of that. Life should be happy, should flow, should grow, should laugh, should love. Attend to Heart, and expect satisfaction and progression. Onward and Upward!