Don't touch that dial!

Here's just a quick thought without any prior research or prolonged pondering to back it up: What if ADHD is a product of one specific component of our entertainment-driven society? What if TV is the actual culprit of distracted youth around the country?

Remember the days before Cable, when you would flip through the 5 TV channels during a commercial break to try and catch another show. Now remember the days after Cable, when you would flip through all 50 channels at least 3 times looking for something decent, because, "there's nothing good on!" Now remember the past 20 minutes you've spent on the Internet. How many tabs do you have open? How many tabs have you cycled through, checking on this web comic, that blog, this forum, that email... ?

We've learned to focus our attention on things in quick bursts, instead of long spans. I know I struggle with this constantly. It's one of the obstacles I have to pass in the process of writing. It's so tempting to avoid the uncomfortable task of rewording a paragraph, in favor of watching a funny YouTube video.

You see, this is only the second day of my month-long attempt to blog every day, and I'm already experiencing the flipping-through-channels phenomenon.

Luckily, I'm motivated to actually publish a blog post tonight... so I haven't been switching tabs, but I've done something a little more time-consuming.

This is the third topic I've started to write about tonight. I saved the other two as drafts, and may yet develop them as full posts, but for one reason or the other, both ideas just didn't have that extra "oomph" to keep me going. I ran into trouble wording a sentence in one. The other had a faulty assumption that I couldn't figure out how to approach from another angle. I just couldn't stick it out and finish either one. I wanted to move on to something new...

What if my life were in danger?
What if I could drown when I lost my focus?

Man, if even Peter, while attempting to walk on water to reach Jesus, had a difficult time focusing on Christ when he was right out in front of him, just think of how much more difficulty we have with so much to distract us from Christ while we can't see him face to face.