It was finally my time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The college media conference in New York City had ended. The awards contest for student journalists I run was in the books. I sat down in my hotel room on my last morning in the city to relax and take it in. I had my phone and a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ah, freedom!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember this very clearly. I was reading a news feed on my phone. I reached over to put my coffee on the side table. I know it went where it was supposed to be because I heard a tap as it made contact. I didn\u2019t see it. I didn\u2019t need to \u2013 I kept my eyes on my phone. But I heard it. And that was good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. My keen peripheral vision spotted something that rarely happens on land:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A tidal wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A giant, brown surging tidal wave!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was coming from my coffee cup. My coffee cup on the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was like a coffee cup cannon. It landed on the floor in just such a way that the plastic lid popped off and the coffee erupted into the air. It was a beautiful, arching display. Like an Olympic diver, or a dolphin leaping from the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s odd,\u201d I remember thinking. \u201cCoffee cups aren\u2019t supposed to be so majestic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then \u2026 I started cursing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nice, free, relaxing morning officially over. FIND \u2026 TOWELS \u2026 NOW!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All thanks to trying to do two things at once. Paying too much attention to the one thing, and totally ignoring the other. It was the final straw. I had no one to blame but by myself. My two-timing game was up. It had gone too far. My attention span had been split down the middle one-too-many times, and this was finally the wake-up call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wanted to blame so many things. Maybe I should write a letter to the coffee lid manufacturer: \u201cMake your lids hold tighter for the sake of multitaskers!\u201d Or the end table maker: \u201cWho in this day and age doesn\u2019t put safety netting on the side of their furniture?!?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I only had myself to blame. And my severe lack of focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If New York will teach you anything, it\u2019s that you can\u2019t be absent-minded. You have to pay attention. You must focus and not divide your already dwindling supply of brain power between multiple tasks. You need to laser-focus on the here and now. That\u2019s the lesson learned by countless phone readers who\u2019ve fallen down NYC manholes. Or become hood ornaments on the No. 9 bus to Battery Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It hadn\u2019t been the first time for me. On the hotel gym\u2019s treadmill I was watching the TV when I mis-stepped and nearly tripped. If I hadn\u2019t caught myself in time, the speed of the spinning runway would have sent me two blocks over. Or in the airport while trying to fill a water bottle, drink from another bottle and also lower my mask. I poked myself in the eye and nearly drowned while choking. A man ran over and started performing the Heimlich on me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were so many, but the coffee explosion topped them all. And was the last straw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I feel like I used to be good at juggling many things at once. That doing this while also doing that was my \u201cthing.\u201d Was I losing my touch as I get older? Or maybe I never had been any good at it in the first place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are no shortage of studies to prove multitasking is the stuff of fools. That when we force our brains to split our attention, they struggle to pull it off. We lose efficiency and make more mistakes. If we studied it, we might find that 95% of the world\u2019s coffee spills are actually caused by people reading about the Kardashians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, yet, we keep thinking that dividing up our time and fracturing our focus is going to make us faster, more efficient and somehow more accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I was walking back up Seventh Avenue from lunch one day, I was on my phone trying to navigate an issue with one of my contest judges. All around me was history, architecture, commerce, culture, and some dogs dressed in designer sweaters. But I was missing it. I couldn\u2019t pull myself out of my work for 5 minutes to take the time to notice, or even appreciate it. Why are we in such a rush all the time? Why do we have so many things to do? Why can\u2019t we just focus our attention before we fall down the manhole?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I cleaned up the titanic tidal wave of coffee, I resolved to learn a lesson from it: To let this be a wake-up call to be more attentive, focused and aware. To slow down, not try to do so much and take more notice of the world around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I figure it\u2019s better to learn that when it\u2019s only coffee, and not when I\u2019m trying to figure out the fare for a windshield ride on the No. 9 bus to Battery Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was finally my time. <\/p>\n
The college media conference in New York City had ended. The awards contest for student journalists I run was in the books. I sat down in my hotel room on my last morning in the city to relax and take it in. I had my phone and a cup of coffee. <\/p>\n
Ah, freedom!<\/p>\n
I remember this very clearly. I was reading a news feed on my phone. I reached over to put my coffee on the side table. I know it went where it was supposed to be because I heard a tap as it made contact. I didn\u2019t see it. I didn\u2019t need to \u2013 I kept my eyes on my phone. But I heard it. And that was good enough. <\/p>\n
Then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. My keen peripheral vision spotted something that rarely happens on land: <\/p>\n
A tidal wave.<\/p>\n
A giant, brown surging tidal wave! <\/p>\n
It was coming from my coffee cup. My coffee cup on the floor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[579,565],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2022-nutshells","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2370,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions\/2370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}